Johns Hopkins Names Building To Honor Henrietta Lacks And Her 'immortal' Cells

By DeNeen L. Brown The Washington PostJohns Hopkins University announced it will name a new research building on campus in honor of Henrietta Lacks, whose "immortal cells" led to the development of the polio vaccine, studies of leukemia and AIDS, chemotherapy and in vitro fertilization research, as well as the effects of zero gravity in space. "This building will be a place that stands as an enduring and powerful testament to a woman who not only was the beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother to generations of the Lacks family, but the genesis of generations of miraculous discoveries that have changed the landscape of modern medicine and that have benefited, in truth, the much larger family of humanity," Johns Hopkins University President Ronald Daniels said recently during the university's ninth annual Henrietta Lacks Memorial lecture series. Construction of the new building, which will be adjacent to the university's Berman Institute of Bioethics' Deering Hall in East Baltimore, will be the site of further study "to promote research ethics and community engagement," the university said. Lacks's cells, dubbed "HeLa cells" by the scientific community, have been the subject of a best-selling book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot, and a television movie, starring Oprah Winfrey as Henrietta Lacks' daughter Deborah Lacks. The cells also have been the center of ongoing controversy over whether the family should receive financial proceeds from their sale.Read more on NewsOK.com