The immortal Henrietta Lacks.

Every once in a while when you let your interests wander and get curious about something you might normally ignore you can discover very interesting things.
For example while researching for our own edification and amusement the life of Jonas Salk and his part in the discovery of a vaccine for polio we came across the name of Henrietta Lacks. She died on October 4th, 1951 of cervical cancer. And one would think that would be the end of her. But part of her still lives, and may live forever. After her death Doctor George Gey removed some of her cancer cells to create an immortal cell line. (These are cells that avoid programmed cell death, Henrietta Lacks cells are not the only immortal ones but they are more interesting for other reasons which we will explain shortly.) You see, Henrietta's cells are taking over the planet. Ok, not the entire planet, let us explain, it seems her cells are so prolific that they have spread to other test cultures in labs all over the world. One website listed 168 lab cultures, of which 61 are contaminated by Henrietta's cells. (Scientists call them HeLa cells.) Many scientists have had to destroy months of testing data as they found that Henrietta's cells contaminated their experiments. And once Russian and American Doctors exchanged angry words as Henrietta's cells contaminated cultures in a joint American/Russian study in a fight against cancer. (During the cold war no less.)
It might be pertinent to point out that the cells taken from Henrietta were taken without the families permission. (A later supreme court case decided that tissue taken by Doctors during treatment belonged to the hospital.) It also should be pointed out that there are so many HeLa cells in labs all over the world that there are currently more Henrietta Lacks cells than there were when she was alive. Henrietta unknowingly however has aided in the cure for Polio, and her cells are still being used today for testing in almost every medical endeavor that is taking place.
So in more ways than one Henrietta Lacks will live forever. So next time you are at the hospital or anywhere near a lab, remember that Henrietta Lacks is most certainly near. We at the Crazy are not sure if we feel comforted or frightened by the prospect. Just a thought, Ciao for now.