Reliving Hela on 2010 World Cancer Day
The long strife in fighting cancer is one big door that opens the mind of cancer patients as to the real value of life. Family and friends of victims testify to every pain that the cancer patient endured, and also speak of the pain that they themselves have to deal knowing they can do nothing to help their beloved. We can just imagine how cancer survivors are thankful for what they consider as their “second life.”
Thanks to the advancements in medicine. Now, cancer stricken people have a considerably good hope to win over the deadly disease. But more thanks to Henrietta Lacks for the ever living contribution in the development of medicine that fights cancer, as well as to developments of Polio vaccine and medicine against flu and Parkinson’s disease. In fact, she was also the key that opened gene mapping and cloning.
Henrietta Lacks’ priceless contribution is her living tumor cell which is called Hela. Although, in truth, she didn’t voluntarily gave the sample of her tumor cells for researches. In 1951, Lacks sought medical aid from John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for her cervical cancer, but still died. However, before she died the doctors took some of her cancer cells to use for research without permission.
The tumor cells were discovered to be no ordinary cells; they kept on growing. And that living tumor cell provided a seemingly endless supply for researches. In fact, they were also used to test the effects of atomic radiation. Hela can still be a key to many other valuable developments in fighting not only cancer but also other dreadful diseases.
