Immortal cells: Henrietta Lacks’ family settle lawsuit over HeLa tissue harvested in 1950s

Nov 05, 2023

Cells taken without consent from cancer victim can reproduce indefinitely and were sold for unjust profit by Thermo Fisher Scientific, relatives argued

Laboratory equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific has settled a lawsuit brought by the estate of Henrietta Lacks, a long-deceased cancer victim whose “immortal” cells have lived on to fuel biomedical research for decades, lawyers for the estate have said.

The story of Lacks, a young African American woman who died in Baltimore in 1951, was made famous in Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which became a movie in 2017 featuring Oprah Winfrey.

The HeLa cell line, the first to survive and reproduce indefinitely in lab conditions, has been cultivated in vast quantities and used in a range of medical research worldwide, including to test the polio vaccine, research the effects of radiation on human cells, and develop a treatment for sickle-cell anaemia.

The tissue sample that became the HeLa cell line was cut from Lacks’ cervix at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore without her knowledge during surgery to treat her cervical cancer. Lacks died of the disease at age 31. Since then, it is estimated, 50m tonnes of her cells have been produced.

Lacks’ estate sued Thermo Fisher in Baltimore federal court in 2021, asserting her family had “not seen a dime” of money that Thermo Fisher made from cultivating the HeLa line of cells that originated from tissue taken without Lacks’ consent during a medical procedure in 1951.

The terms of the agreement were confidential. Thermo Fisher and the estate’s attorneys, Ben Crump and Chris Seeger, said in a statement that they were pleased with the settlement.

The lawsuit accused Waltham, Massachusetts-based Thermo Fisher of unjust enrichment, arguing it illegally commercialised Lacks’ genetic material.

“Black suffering has fuelled innumerable medical progress and profit, without just compensation or recognition,” the lawsuit said.

The estate had asked the court to disgorge Thermo Fisher’s profit from commercialising HeLa cells and to block the company from using them without its permission. Thermo Fisher argued in court that the lawsuit was brought too late and that the estate failed to outline a valid unjust enrichment claim.

With Reuters