The Medical/Technology for the use of HeLa Cells

Posted: August 25th, 2021

The Medical/Technology for the use of HeLa Cells

Approximately 60 years ago, a monumental discovery in medicine took place. Medical scientists, while studying cells drawn from cervical-cancer biopsy, unearthed the first immortal human cell line. The body tissue from which the cells were drawn belonged to a middle-class African-American woman, Henrietta Lacks. Several years later, this epic discovery became a medical breakthrough which has since defined and determined most of the current technologies in medicine.

With regard to technological impact, HeLa Cells have had a wide influence. Starting in 1952, the development of vaccines for key medical ailments such as Polio became possible. Vaccines are a form of technology that has since been used to protect and salvage millions of people’s lives that could have been lost through epidemics.While studying the cells, scientists discovered that some of them behaved uniquely. Their ability to separate them while keeping them alive became the breakthrough on which in-vitro fertilization was invented (“Five Reasons Henrietta Lacks is the Most Important Woman in Medical History”). Besides, it is the technique that scientists have since been using in the cloning of cells, especially in treatment s needing alteration of genes. To date, the influence of HeLa Cells on technology is still present. Researchers unearthed that HeLa Cells use telomerase enzyme to stay alive through the instant repair of their DNA. This finding is now being used by experts in developing and testing anti-cancer drugs which could save millions of lives that succumb to the deadly disease.

In the history of medicine and medical technology, the influence of HeLa Cells cannot be underestimated. Were it not for the cells, olio could have remained a deadly disease which could have probably wiped out the world population by to date. Cloning and in-vitro fertilization could, perhaps, not have ever been invented. The clinical trials on anti-cancer drugs may not have resulted in the absence of HeLa Cells.  

Works Cited

“Five Reasons Henrietta Lacks is the Most Important Woman in Medical History.” Popular Science, 5 Feb. 2010, www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-01/five-reasons-henrietta-lacks-most-important-woman-medical-history. Accessed 12 June 2019.