Henrietta Lacks husband-Henrietta Lacks is an African-American woman who was born on August 1, 1920.
The HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line and one of the most significant cell lines in medical research was created from the cancer cells of this woman.
Lacks was born in Roanake, Virginia in the United States of America. She was born to Eliza Pleasant and John Randall Pleasant.
Henrietta Lacks life
Lacks was described as having hazel eyes, a slim waist, size 6 shoes, red nail varnish on her always, and a skirt with tidy pleats. She was given the nickname Hennie, however, her family is unsure of how her name changed from Loretta to Henrietta.
Lacks’ mother passed away in 1924, just after giving birth to her tenth child, when she was four years old. Lacks’s father relocated the family to Clover, Virginia after losing his wife and being unable to care for the kids alone. There, the kids were split up among relatives. 7
Lacks eventually settled in a two-story log cabin that had been the slave quarters on the property that had been owned by Henrietta’s white great-grandfather and great-uncle, Thomas “Tommy” Henry Lacks, with her maternal grandpa.
Her future husband, David “Day” Lacks (1915-2002), and her nine-year-old first cousin (their mothers were sisters) shared a room with her.
Lacks began her career as a tobacco farmer at a young age, just like the majority of her family members who also resided in Clover. She worked in the tobacco fields, managed the garden, and fed the animals.
When she had to leave school to help support the family in the sixth grade, she was attending the designated black school two kilometers from the cabin.
Lawrence Lacks was born to Lacks in 1935 when she was just 14 years old. Her daughter, Elsie Lacks (1939–1955), was born in 1939. Day Lacks was the father of both children. Elsie’s family referred to her as “different” or “deaf and dumb” and noted that she had cerebral palsy and epilepsy.
The HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line and one of the most significant cell lines in medical research sprang from Lacks’ cancer cells.
Under specific circumstances, an immortalized cell line can continue to divide indefinitely, and the HeLa cell line has been and continues to be a vital source of medical information.
These cells were unknowingly derived from a tumor biopsy taken in 1951 while Lacks was receiving treatment for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
George Otto Gey cultivated these cells and produced the HeLa cell line, which is still employed in medical research today.
No permission was needed to culture the cells recovered from Lacks’ treatment, as was customary at the time. She and her family weren’t paid anything for the HeLa cells’ harvest or use.
Researchers began to learn a little bit about the history of HeLa’s immortalized cell lines after 1970, but it wasn’t until 1975 that the Lacks family learned of the line’s existence.
The usage of the cell line for medical research and for commercial purposes has raised questions regarding patient rights and privacy ever since the genetic provenance of the cell line became known to the general public.
Who is Henrietta Lacks’ husband?
Henrietta Lacks was married to David Lacks on April 10, 1941 in Halifax County, Virginia. The couple stayed together for a decade before Henrietta kicked the bucket in 1951. They had five children together.
Source: www.Ghgossip.com
