Talk:HeLa
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[edit] Ethics
No discussion of the ethics involved in the matter - companies used the cells to make millions in patents, and the family didn't see anything out of it.
- Well, as pointed out in Henrietta Lacks' article, the United States Supreme Court has ruled, for better or for worse, that:
There was then as now, no necessity to inform a patient, or their relatives, about such matters because discarded material, or material obtained during surgery, diagnosis or therapy was the property of the physician and/or medical institution. This problem and Ms. Lacks' situation was brought up in the Supreme Court of California case of John Moore v. the Regents of the University of California. The court ruled that a person's discarded tissue and cells are not their property and can be commercialized.
--Rajah 18:41, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Coining of term HeLa
The article mentions that the woman died from the cancer in 1951 but does not mention when the term "HeLa" was coined. Was it at this time or much later when commercial applications were devised? On Usenet the earliest mention I can find was in 1983: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/net.flame/msg/4029972e4544a6fc?hl=en&
This term is interesting as it pertains to the CamelCaps article. — Hippietrail 12:06, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Why are they immortal?
Anybody know exactly what it is about these cells that make them immortal? Regulated telomerase? Self generated super efficient antioxidants?
- The article now states that it is due to persistent telomerase activity so that the telomeres are never degraded. --Rajah 18:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
- I don't think that the individual cells are immortal but that the cell line is immortal. If you consider the cell line to be all part of one creature rather that a multitude of individual creatures it's immortal in that sense. Thus it's really no more immortal than any single celled asexual organism. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here cus this isn't my field. - Arch NME 22:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] This is an example of why Wikipedia is ridiculed.
"HeLa cells are perhaps an example of devolution, in which a complex multicellular organism has devolved into a simple, self-replicating, single-cell organism. It may also represent the first documented creation of a new species."
And deservedly so.
- Introduced on December 8. Removed on December 9. MichaelSH 03:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] New species?
I can't find the paper they are referring to, but there are references here and here to a paper stating HeLa is a new species. Though googling that doesn't give many hits. Anyone know more? --RE 21:35, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
- That citation does not exist in PubMed, and it appears that the journal Evolutionary Theory closed down in the late 1980's. The closest I can find is this: VANVALEN LM, MAIORANA VC, PATTERNS OF ORIGINATION, EVOLUTIONARY THEORY 7 (3): 107-125 1985. Unfortunately, that journal not accessible to me, so I can't check it out. No matter what the proper citation is, the classification of HeLa as a new species is not broadly accepted in the scientific community. This is because it is not clear how the term species applies to such organisms, and the fact that HeLa cells cannot survive outside the lab. I am changing the article to reflect this, and also to remove the misunderstandings concerning what an immortal cell line is (immortal just means that the cells can reproduce indefinately, not that they do not 'age'). -- Beardedstoat 11:03, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Is someone looking for the Van Valen article? I think I have a scanned copy of it. Someone sent me a scan, and he sent me a snailmail copy. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 16:11, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
