Woman with Immortal Cells

Re:Woman with Immortal Cells by roadnottaken on Wednesday December 29, 2010 @01:35PM (#2049650)

This article is pretty inaccurate with respect to the uniqueness of this phenomenon: "What’s unique about her cells is that, not only do they never die, in contrast to normal human cells which will die after a few replications, but her cells can also live and replicate just fine outside of the human body, which is also unique among humans"

Most cells derived from tumors can be "cultured" like this, indefinitely. That's what makes cancer cells cancerous. There are literally thousands of "cell-lines" in regular use by cell-biologists all over the world. HeLa cells are robust and ubiquitous, but definitely not unique. In fact, one can order nearly 1000 such cell-lines from the 'American Type Culture Collection' (ATCC):

http://www.atcc.org/Portals/1/TumorLines.pdf

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Woman with Immortal Cells by krakensden on Wednesday December 29, 2010 @04:48PM (#2050291)

Wasn't there a big up a few years ago, where they found that a bunch of cell lines had been contaminated with HeLa?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Woman with Immortal Cells by roadnottaken on Wednesday December 29, 2010 @06:29PM (#2050572)

Yes, there was. You can read about the issue (and a potential solution) here:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100602/full/465537a.html

This happens because HeLa cells are very hardy, robust growers and they're found in most tissue-culture labs. So if you get even a single HeLa cell in your culture, they'll eventually proliferate and take-over the cells you thought you had. Regardless, there are still many, many other legit cell-lines.

[ Parent | on HN ]