HeLa cellsFLICKR, GE HEALTHCARE
Cell type: HeLa cells, the cervical tumor cells of Henrietta Lacks
Genome size: ~3.2 billion base pairs
HeLa cells, the first cells ever to be grown immortally in culture, have supported some of the greatest scientific achievements, including the development of the polio vaccine and the discovery that the human papilloma virus can cause cervical cancer. They were sampled in 1951 from the cervical tumor of a woman named Henrietta Lacks who died at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore of cervical cancer, and in the years since they have contributed to more than 60,000 publications.
Now, for the first time, HeLa cells have been sequenced, and the results show that they are vastly different from ordinary human cells. Previous work had shown that they have ...
