Loretta (Pleasant) Lacks (1920 - 1951)

Born 1 Aug 1920 in Roanoke City, Virginia, United States

Ancestors

Wife of David Lacks — married 10 Apr 1941 in Halifax County, Virginia

Died 4 Oct 1951 at age 31 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States

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Biography

Henrietta (Pleasant) Lacks is Notable.

Henrietta Lacks was born Loretta Henrietta Pleasant on 01 August 1920 in Roanoke City, Virginia, USA, and her parents were Eliza Lacks and Johnny Pleasant. Everyone who knew her called her Henrietta or Henny. In more recent writings, she has sometimes erroneously been referred to as Henrietta Lakes, Helen Lane or Helen Larson.

Loretta Henrietta "Henny" Pleasant married on 10 Apr 1941 in Clover, Virginia, USA to David "Day" Lacks,^[1] her first cousin.^[2]

Ten years later she was the mother of five children, but seriously ill. She sought medical treatment at the world-famous Johns Hopkins Hospital, because it was the only hospital within 20 miles of her home that would accept black patients. At Hopkins her cervical cancer was misdiagnosed. Without her knowledge or consent, a tissue sample was obtained from her growing (and soon-to-be fatal) tumor for medical research by Dr. George Gey (1899-1970). Not informing the patient was an ordinary practice at the time, and Gey routinely collected samples from all the hospital's cancer patients for his research.^[3]

On 08 August 1951, Henrietta was readmitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital for what would be the last time. She died just after midnight on 04 October 1951. Doctors performed an autopsy that revealed firm white lumps studding her body: her chest cavity, lungs, liver, and kidney. They described her bladder as looking like one solid tumor.^[4]

Henrietta was buried in an unmarked grave next to her mother, near the house where her grandfather had raised her. The cabin was built of hand-hewn logs and pegs that was once the slave quarters of their ancestors.^[4] A gravestone was finally erected on 29 May 2010.^[5]

Medical

Like most cervical cancers, Henrietta's was caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV).^[6]

Her cells were cultured by Gey to create the first known human immortal cell line for medical research. This is now known as the HeLa cell line.^[7]

Dr. Gey "discovered that [Henrietta's] cells did something they'd never seen before: They could be kept alive and grow." Before this, cells cultured from other cells would only survive for a few days. Scientists spent more time trying to keep the cells alive than performing actual research on the cells, but some cells from Lacks's tumor sample behaved differently from others. George Gey was able to isolate one specific cell, multiply it, and start a cell line. Gey named the sample HeLa, after the initial letters of Henrietta Lacks' name. As the first lab-grown human cells that were "immortal" (they do not die after a few cell divisions), they could be used for conducting many experiments. This represented an enormous boon to medical and biological research.^[7]

As reporter Michael Rogers stated, the growth of HeLa by a researcher at the hospital helped answer the demands of the 10,000 who marched for a cure to polio shortly before Lacks' death. By 1954, the HeLa strain of cells was being used by Jonas Salk to develop a vaccine for polio. To test Salk's new vaccine, the cells were quickly put into mass production in the first-ever cell production factory.^[7]

In 1955, HeLa cells were the first human cells successfully cloned.^[7]

Demand for the HeLa cells quickly grew. Since they were put into mass production, Henrietta's cells have been mailed to scientists around the globe for "research into cancer, AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxic substances, gene mapping, and countless other scientific pursuits." HeLa cells have been used to test human sensitivity to tape, glue, cosmetics, and many other products. Scientists have grown some 20 tons of her cells, and there are almost 11,000 patents involving HeLa cells.^[7]

In the early 1970s, the family of Henrietta Lacks started getting calls from researchers who wanted blood samples from them to learn the family's genetics (eye colors, hair colors, and genetic connections). The family questioned this, which led to them learning about the removal of Henrietta's cells.^[7]

DNA

The sequence of the HeLa cell line's mtDNA (and hence Henrietta's mtDNA) has been published and falls in the L3b1a1 haplogroup.^[8][9]

The full genome of HeLa was published in 2013, raising ethical questions. Subsequently the access to the published HeLa genome has been restricted for qualified research purposes under the authorization of the ACD HeLa Genome Data Access Working Group.

Notes

Henrietta Lacks' hometown will build statue of her where Robert E. Lee sculpture once stood

A bronze statue honoring Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose "Immortal" cells have resulted in countless medical breakthroughs, will be built in her birthplace of Roanoke, Virginia. The statue will stand in downtown Roanoke's Henrietta Lacks Plaza, previously named Lee Plaza after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. ^[10]

Henrietta Lacks was posthumously inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2020 ^[11].

Sources

1. ↑ "Virginia, Marriage Certificates 1936-1988" database with images, FamilySearch (20 Aug 2018) citing "Virginia, Marriage Records 1700-1850" on ancestry.com; Virginia Department of Health in Richmond. VA; marriage certificate #49279; m: 10 Apr 1941 Clover, Virginia, USA for David Lacks and Henrietta Pleasants
2. ↑ Cousin relationship
3. ↑ Notable Names Database (NNDB) for Henrietta Lacks
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Denise M. Watson, "Cancer killed Henrietta Lacks - then made her immortal" The Virginia Pilot; May 10, 2010.
5. ↑ A Historic Day: Henrietta Lacks’s Long Unmarked Grave Finally Gets a Headstone with gravestone photo
6. ↑ Joseph Hall, "How poor tobacco farmer Henrietta Lacks became a medical superstar after her death", The Star; April 23, 2017.
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5} Wikipedia for Henrietta Lacks with personal photo
8. ↑ Herrnstadt, Corinna et al; "A high frequency of mtDNA polymorphisms in HeLa cell sublines" Mutation Research 501 (2002) 19-28
9. ↑ (at) rootsweb.com/thread/1293355/ DNA - Various mtDNA sequences now on GenBank by Ian Logan on 2011/Apr/18
10. ↑ Kendall Ross, "Henrietta Lacks' hometown will build statue of her where Robert E. Lee sculpture once stood," ABC News, December 19, 2022.
11. ↑ National Women's Hall of Fame

• "United States Census 1940" on FamilySearch database with images (13 Mar 2018) citing RG#29; NARA#T627; roll#4267; ed#42-25; sheet#8B; line#66; family#124; for Henrate [sic] Pleasant in household of David Lacks, res: Roanoke Magisterial District, Halifax County, Virginia, USA

• Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (New York: Crown Publishers, 2010). See Wikipedia: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

• Biography.com for Henrietta Lacks

• FamilySearch Person: LHR8-882 for Henrietta Pleasant

• Geni Family Tree for Henrietta Pleasant

• Michaeleen Doucleff, Decades After Henrietta Lacks' Death, Family Gets A Say On Her Cells (with personal photo), NPR's Morning Edition talks with NIH's Dr. Francis Collins, August 7, 2013.

• "10 Unknown Heroes Who Saved the World", Alltime10s Youtube 17 Feb 2017

• Belated FindAGrave Memorial is linked here: Find a Grave, database and images (accessed 25 April 2021), memorial page for Henrietta Pleasant Lacks (1 Aug 1920–4 Oct 1951), Find A Grave: Memorial #11698761, citing Lacks Family Cemetery, Clover, Halifax County, Virginia, USA ; Maintained by Find A Grave.