Скачать или смотреть The Woman Whose Cells Saved Millions - And No One Told Her

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks went to Johns Hopkins Hospital for treatment. Without her knowledge, doctors took a sample of her cervical tumor cells. Those cells became the first immortal human cell line — HeLa — and they changed modern medicine forever.

HeLa cells were used to drive breakthroughs across medicine, including work that supported the development of the polio vaccine and countless areas of biomedical research. Billions of dollars were built on research powered by those cells. Henrietta died on October 4, 1951, never knowing what had been taken from her.

For decades, her family received no compensation and had little control over how her cells and genetic data were used. In 2013, the NIH reached an agreement with the Lacks family to control access to HeLa whole genome sequence data.

In recent years, the family has pursued legal action over companies profiting from HeLa cells. A lawsuit against Thermo Fisher filed in 2021 ended in an undisclosed settlement in 2023, and additional lawsuits have continued against other companies.


This is the true story of Henrietta Lacks — the woman behind the most famous cells in history.

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