The year is 1951.
The year is 1951.
Henrietta Lacks, a 31 year old woman from Baltimore, USA, is ill.
She visits her doctor, who fears the worst and removes some cells from her cervix.
He sends the cells to a laboratory to see if she has cervical cancer.
The cells are indeed malignant and Henrietta Lacks dies eight months later.
Henrietta Lacks cells (HeLa cells - like the one above) remain alive in laboratories all over the world nearly 50 years after her death.
