Family of Henrietta Lacks agrees to release of genomic data

[AussieNeil]

"The HeLa cell line was established in 1951 from a biopsy of a cervical tumour taken from Henrietta Lacks, a working-class African-American woman living near Baltimore. The cells were taken without the knowledge or permission of her or her family, and they became the first human cells to grow well in a lab. They contributed to the development of a polio vaccine, the discovery of human telo­merase and countless other advances. A PubMed search for ‘HeLa’ turns up more than 75,000 papers."

"Now the director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis Collins, is trying to make up for decades of slights. Over the past four months, he has met Lacks family members to answer questions and to discuss what should be done with genome data from their matriarch’s cell line."

nature.com/news/deal-done-o...

Better late than never I guess.

Neil