the immortal life of henrietta lacks characters

in 1947, Deborah Lacks (later known as Deborah Lacks Pullum) in 1949 (died 2009), and Joseph Lacks (later known as Zakariyya Bari Abdul Rahman after converting to Islam) in 1950. Living in Maryland, Henrietta and Day Lacks had three more children: David 'Sonny' Lacks Jr. Now part of Dundalk, Turner Station was one of the oldest and largest African-American communities in Baltimore County at that time. With the savings gifted to him by Garrett, Day Lacks was able to purchase a house at 713 New Pittsburgh Avenue in Turner Station. Not long after they moved to Maryland, Garrett was called to fight in World War II. Later that year, their cousin, Fred Garrett, convinced the couple to leave the tobacco farm in Virginia and move to Turner Station, near Dundalk, Maryland, in Baltimore County, so Day could work in Bethlehem Steel at Sparrows Point, Maryland. On April 10, 1941, David 'Day' Lacks and Henrietta Lacks were married in Halifax County, Virginia. Elsie had epilepsy and cerebral palsy and was described by the family as 'different' or 'deaf and dumb'. Both children were fathered by Day Lacks. In 1939, her daughter Elsie Lacks (1939–1955) was born. In 1935, when Lacks was 14 years old, she gave birth to a son, Lawrence Lacks. She attended the designated black school two miles away from the cabin until she had to drop out to help support the family in the sixth grade.

She fed the animals, tended the garden, and toiled in the tobacco fields. Like most members of her family living in Clover, Lacks worked as a tobacco farmer starting from an early age. She shared a room with her nine-year-old first cousin (their mothers were sisters) and future husband, David 'Day' Lacks (1915–2002). Lacks ended up with her maternal grandfather, Thomas 'Tommy' Henry Lacks, in a two-story log cabin that was once the slave quarters on the plantation that had been owned by Henrietta's white great-grandfather and great-uncle. Unable to care for the children alone after his wife's death, Lacks's father moved the family to Clover, Virginia, where the children were distributed among relatives. When Lacks was four years old in 1924, her mother died giving birth to her tenth child. Her family is uncertain how her name changed from Loretta to Henrietta, but she was nicknamed Hennie. She is remembered as having hazel eyes, a small waist, size 6 shoes, and always wearing red nail polish and a neatly pleated skirt.

Henrietta Lacks was born Loretta Pleasant on August 1, 1920, in Roanoke, Virginia, to Eliza Pleasant (nee Lacks) (1886–1924) and John 'Johnny' Randall Pleasant (1881–1969). 2.1 Consent issues and privacy concerns.With knowledge of the cell line's genetic provenance becoming public, its use for medical research and for commercial purposes continues to raise concerns about privacy and patients' rights. Consistent with contemporary standards, neither she nor her family were compensated for their extraction or use.Įven though some information about the origins of HeLa's immortalized cell lines was known to researchers after 1970, the Lacks family was not made aware of the line's existence until 1975. As was then the practice, no consent was required to culture the cells obtained from Lacks's treatment. These cells were then cultured by George Otto Gey, who created the cell line known as HeLa, which is still used for medical research. Lacks was the unwitting source of these cells from a tumor biopsied during treatment for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., in 1951. An immortalized cell line reproduces indefinitely under specific conditions, and the HeLa cell line continues to be a source of invaluable medical data to the present day. Henrietta Lacks (born Loretta Pleasant Aug– October 4, 1951) was an African-American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical research.

Zakariyya Bari Abdul Rahman (born Joseph Lacks)Įliza (1886–1924) and John Randall Pleasant I (1881–1969) Henrietta Lacks Health and Bioscience High School historical marker at Clover, Virginia

The immortal life of henrietta lacks characters