30 Facts About Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks was born Loretta Pleasant on August 1,1920, in Roanoke, Virginia, to Eliza Pleasant and John "Johnny" Randall Pleasant.

Henrietta Lacks 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's family is uncertain how her name changed from Loretta to Henrietta, but she was nicknamed Hennie.

When Henrietta Lacks was four years old in 1924, her mother died giving birth to her tenth child.

Unable to care for the children alone after his wife's death, Henrietta Lacks's father moved the family to Clover, Virginia, where the children were distributed among relatives.

Henrietta Lacks shared a room with her nine-year-old first cousin and her future husband, David "Day" Lacks.

Henrietta Lacks fed the animals, tended the garden, and toiled in the tobacco fields.

Henrietta Lacks attended the designated black school two miles away from the cabin until she had to drop out to help support the family when she was in the sixth grade.

In 1935, when Henrietta Lacks was 14 years old, she gave birth to a son, Lawrence Henrietta Lacks.

Henrietta Lacks gave birth to her last child at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in November 1950, four and a half months before she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

On January 29,1951, Henrietta Lacks went to Johns Hopkins, the only hospital in the area that treated black patients, because she felt a "knot" in her womb.

Henrietta Lacks had previously told her cousins about the "knot" and they assumed correctly that she was pregnant.

Henrietta Lacks was treated with radium tube inserts as an inpatient and discharged a few days later with instructions to return for X-ray treatments as a follow-up.

Henrietta Lacks received blood transfusions and remained at the hospital until her death on October 4,1951.

In 2010, Roland Pattillo, a faculty member of the Morehouse School of Medicine who had worked with George Gey and knew the Henrietta Lacks family, donated a headstone for Henrietta Lacks.

The book-shaped headstone of Henrietta Lacks contains an epitaph written by her grandchildren that reads:.

Henrietta Lacks's cells were the first to be observed that could be divided multiple times without dying, which is why they became known as "immortal".

In 1975, the family learned through a chance dinner-party conversation that material originating in Henrietta Lacks was continuing to be used for medical research.

The Henrietta Lacks family discovered this when the author Rebecca Skloot informed them.

In October 2021, Henrietta Lacks's estate filed a lawsuit against Thermo Fisher Scientific for profiting from the HeLa cell line without Henrietta Lacks's consent, asking for "the full amount of [Thermo Fisher's] net profits".

Henrietta Lacks's contributions continue to be celebrated at yearly events in Turner Station.

In 2014, Henrietta Lacks was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame.

In 2020, Henrietta Lacks was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

In 2021, the Henrietta Lacks Enhancing Cancer Research Act of 2019 became law; it states the Government Accountability Office must complete a study about barriers to participation that exist in cancer clinical trials that are federally funded for populations that have been underrepresented in such trials.

On December 19,2022, it was announced that a bronze statue honoring Henrietta Lacks would be erected in Roanoke, Virginia's Henrietta Lacks Plaza, previously named Lee Plaza after Confederate Gen.

The HeLa cell line's connection to Henrietta Lacks was first brought to popular attention in March 1976 with a pair of articles in the Detroit Free Press and Rolling Stone written by reporter Michael Rogers.

In 1998, Adam Curtis directed a BBC documentary about Henrietta Lacks called The Way of All Flesh.

Skloot worked with Deborah Henrietta Lacks, who was determined to learn more about her mother, on the book.

Henrietta Lacks used her first royalty check from the book to start the Henrietta Lacks Foundation, which has provided funds like college tuition and medical procedures for Henrietta's family.

The film The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was released in 2017, with Renee Elise Goldsberry portraying Lacks.