The immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks - Robin Bulleri

The Good Thing: we have achieved immortality The Bad Thing: it’s just cancer

Technically, Henrietta Lacks is still alive, as purple cancer lumps. I salute her.

Got to learn about her in school since I live in Baltimore. It's sad science classes don't teach much about her. Without her, we wouldn't have so many medical advances. Her family deserves compensation.

The abuse the was subjected to by John Hopkins wasn't even covered in this video. They never treated her like a patient and were never transparent about what they were doing. The "treatments" that they gave her ended up leaving her infertile

HeLa cells are immortal, but Hela is a goddess of death. Huh.

Well that was 4 and a half minutes of very very intriguing information.

If there's an afterlife I hope she is happy in the knowledge that she has saved thousands, if not million, of lives

I remember reading about Henrietta and her cells in college. It was so amazing. It was also kinda terrible to read about her cells being used for such amazing science without Henrietta ever consenting to her cells being used this way or her family ever being compensated. Can't remember if her family ever did get compensation, but I remember the book mentioning her family eventually going to court about it. It was nice to see this video mention the unethical history behind the science instead of just glossing it over as if Henrietta and her family never mattered.

I feel bad for Henrietta, she had the most insane cancer, there was no way she was going to be cured from having that. But, her misfortune is our fortune I guess, we live in a better world thanks to her

Thank you, Henrietta Lacks!

Glad someone finally explained the "immortal cancers" properly to me. Until now I thought that scientists all over the world were infinitely growing unkillable blobs of cancer.

3:22 I love the effect of how instead of skeleton, you see the inner parts of a human cell. Bravo, people who worked on this animation!

Just wait until the whole universe is a massive purple blob...

I like how they gave credit to the patient.

I actually go to a school named after her! What really sucks is that her family wasn’t just middle class-they were in poverty. Henriettas kids couldn’t even afford healthcare, but certain companys we’re making trillons of dollars.the doctors also A) never told her she would be infertial after the radiation treatment B) continually sent her back home even though she was in horrible pain C) never told her family she was dying-they all thought the doctors were still trying to cure her. I suggest to read “the immortal life of Henrietta lacks” by Rebecca skloot

Here’s a question, if her cells are “immortal” meaning they’ve been dividing for 70 years straight with no end in sight, do we know for sure that the dna of those cells hasn’t changed since ‘51? I mean, a serious issue with cell division that this video points out is that eventually errors creep into the code, so are HeLa cells immune codon errors as well? If that’s the case, my next question would be “is it because HeLa cells have so many sets of chromosomes, that they can self correct after each division?”

If used incorrectly, the earth will turn purple.

How come we don't learn about Henrietta Lacks in school. Her mutated cells still exist today, that's incredible!

If you haven't I highly recommend reading 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks' it's an amazing book talking about her family life, how scientists discovered the cells, and what her children have to say about her cells

The funny thing is, my class and I are reading about her right now, so this will be very useful to have!