Talk:HeLa
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Contents |
[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)
Yes, you're wrong. These cells are immortal for the reason given by Radjah. It's not just a point of view.
--Both are correct. The cells are constantly dividing so they are like a single celled prokaryotic organism, always dividing into daughter cells. The reason that they go past the Hayflick limit of most other eukaryotic cells, that can divide only around 40 times, is most likely a mutation in their telomerase. The cells don't behave in unison like tissue, they act more like single celled organisms. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 18:10, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] This is an example of why Wikipedia is ridiculed.
"HeLa cells are perhaps an example of biological 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)
" There is NOTHING in modern evolutionary theory which dictates that "complex" organisms may not develop into "simple" organisms. Specialised structures are often diminished or lost altogether where the evolutionary selection pressure is not great enough to balance or overcome the developmental "energy" required to maintain these specialities, hence the loss of flight in birds with no ground predators, or the loss of eye structures in cave dwelling organisms. Technically, if the organism's chromosomal count is different from a human, then there are grounds for saying that it is no longer of the same species. This could be checked in theory, by trying to crossbreed the two organisms. Unfortunately, it would be quite difficult to cross a unicellullar organism with a human being. (Bear in mind that a HeLa cell is NOT a haploid gamete; rather it is an organism in its own right.)" 81.145.241.104 14:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)Lance Tyrell
[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)
-
- I think someone has since removed the fact that "the classification of HeLa as a new species is not broadly accepted in the scientific community." I've added it back in. Miken32 01:06, 2 November 2007 (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)
I'd say that since the HeLa cells are all of Heinretta Lacks origin, that they should be considered to be descendents of Heinretta Lacks and treated as members of the Lacks family.204.52.215.107 15:01, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Spamming Wikipedia
Biologicalworld.com has spammed wikipedia like no tomorrow. He is a site of only a few pages and a LOT of adsense. Not much information is given except for "protocols" which are not referenced, and cannot be trusted from a site of that quality.
check: Links from Wikipedia
The following have been cleaned up:
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmid
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gel_electrophoresis
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_fluorescent_protein
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(biology)
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protease
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_enzyme
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petri_dish
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_domain
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypsin
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligonucleotide
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_electron_microscope
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agar_plate
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_phosphate
Sciencetalks (talk)
[edit] Michael Gold, book Conspiracy of Cells:
Michael Gold is not Mike Gold(died1967). Wikilink has been to Mike's article.
Michael Gold's middle name may (or may not) be Evan. SmithBlue (talk) 06:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
- Also Gold, M. "The cells that would not die." Science 81 (April), 2(3): 28-35. and Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences:Michael Gold. A Conspiracy of Cells: One Woman's Immortal Legacy and the Medical Scandal It Caused. Reviewed by Patricia Harris. JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE AND ALLIED SCIENCES ISSN OO22-5O45VOLUME 41 JULY 1986 NUMBER 3 PG 368 SmithBlue (talk) 08:27, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Helacyton gartleri
"With near unanimity, evolutionary scientists and biologists hold that a chimeric human cell line is not a distinct species." Shouldn't be that hard to find a citation if there's near unanimity! - ∅ (∅), 11:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
