The Role of Hela Cell in Medical Development
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells- taken without knowledge- become one of the most important tools in medicine (Rebecca Skloot). According to the scientists who have been growing HeLa for countless experiments, if you could pile HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons- as much as Empire State Buildings (The NY Times).
Long times ago, even during the 19th century, scientist all over the world had started to find the cure for cancer, one of the most feared disease you can ever imagine, simply because you don’t know what the cause and how to turn it off. Cancer started off with something very simple- when they cannot stop dividing. Normally, a healthy cell, when they are matured and ready to divide, will send some kind of information to the neighboring cells that it is going to undergo mitosis- a process of cell division and completed in different stage. In every stage, there will be a checkpoint where the cells are going to be self-examined and in order to pass the checkpoint; they have to be in the completely good condition. The responsible gene to destroy or recycle the damaged cells at the checkpoint is called the tumor suppressor genes. There are many known tumor suppressor genes; the first one discovered by human is Retinoblastoma but the most renowned one is p53. In the damaged cells, however, the tumor suppressor genes are turned off by mutation, which may change, add or delete some of the alleles in the genes, as a result, the gene cannot function in proper manner. In the absence of the tumor suppressor genes, damaged cells can proceed to the next step in mitosis and divide uncontrollably. When the damaged cells divided successfully, the process is repeated in the every daughter cell over and over again and these cells will form a lump of tissue called tumor. The overgrowing of tumor
Long times ago, even during the 19th century, scientist all over the world had started to find the cure for cancer, one of the most feared disease you can ever imagine, simply because you don’t know what the cause and how to turn it off. Cancer started off with something very simple- when they cannot stop dividing. Normally, a healthy cell, when they are matured and ready to divide, will send some kind of information to the neighboring cells that it is going to undergo mitosis- a process of cell division and completed in different stage. In every stage, there will be a checkpoint where the cells are going to be self-examined and in order to pass the checkpoint; they have to be in the completely good condition. The responsible gene to destroy or recycle the damaged cells at the checkpoint is called the tumor suppressor genes. There are many known tumor suppressor genes; the first one discovered by human is Retinoblastoma but the most renowned one is p53. In the damaged cells, however, the tumor suppressor genes are turned off by mutation, which may change, add or delete some of the alleles in the genes, as a result, the gene cannot function in proper manner. In the absence of the tumor suppressor genes, damaged cells can proceed to the next step in mitosis and divide uncontrollably. When the damaged cells divided successfully, the process is repeated in the every daughter cell over and over again and these cells will form a lump of tissue called tumor. The overgrowing of tumor
Cited: M.D., Alan Cantwell. Rense.com. 02 July 2010. 27 January 2011 . Margonelli, Lisa. "The New York Times ." 05 February 2010. The New York Times. 27 January 2011 . Medicine.Net. MedicineNet.com. 26 March 1998. 28 January 2011 . Skloot, Rebecca. "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." New York: Crown Publishers, 2010. 93-97, 216. Zielinski, Sarah. Smithsonian Magazine. 22 January 2010. 26 January 2011 . "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009". Nobelprize.org. 7 Feb 2011 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2009/