Name: The woman whose cells never die - 6 Minute English
Uploaded: 2021-01-28T22:40:15.000Z
Duration: 6 min 18 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Rob.

What do Vincent Van Gogh and Galileo Galilei

Well, that's true… but another similarity is their amazing

I know another person whose huge contribution to science

went unrecognised during her lifetime, Rob,

but unlike Van Gogh or Galileo, you probably haven't heard of her.

Henrietta Lacks was a young, black, American mother

Although she never consented to her tissues being used for

medical research, doctors at the time found her cells

to have an extraordinary ability to replace themselves endlessly.

Named 'HeLa cells' after her initials, Henrietta Lacks' tissue

helped make possible all sorts of medical breakthroughs,

from the polio vaccine to cancer drugs, to HIV and IVF treatments.

the great-great-granddaughter of slaves, Henrietta and her cells

continue to provide medical discoveries to this day…

…most recently, of course, in the race for a coronavirus vaccine.

But before we go on, Georgina, it's time for my quiz question.

I mentioned that Henrietta Lacks was born one hundred years ago,

but do you know what other medical breakthrough happened

in 1921? Was it: a) the discovery of insulin?,

OK, Georgina, we'll find out if that's right later on.

Now, it was Henrietta's biography by science writer,

Rebecca Skloot, that brought her remarkable story

Here is Rebecca Skloot, explaining Henrietta's importance

to BBC World Service programme, The Forum:

So much of science is based on growing cells in culture

In vitro fertilization – that started with the ability to grow

embryos in culture which you can do in part thanks to her cells

so the list just goes on and on, and right now

people are often asking how are HeLa cells helping with Covid. […]

Scientists worked that out very quickly using her cells…

they figured out what the receptor looks like

so her cells are just this incredible workhorse

Doctors used Henrietta's cells to figure out –

or understand, how cells reproduce and divide –

knowledge that was vital in developing in vitro fertilization,

or IVF, a technique for women who cannot become

pregnant naturally, in which an egg is fertilized

Our bodies are made of millions and millions of cells

Henrietta's extraordinary cells which just grew and grew.

This resulted not only in new fertility treatments,

but later in AIDS and cancer breakthroughs,

which is why Rebecca refers to HeLa cells as a workhorse,

But perhaps Henrietta's greatest legacy of all

Here's professor of genetics, Sir John Burn,

talking to BBC World Service's, The Forum:

Henrietta would have particularly liked the announcement

this year that polio vaccine had led to the eradication of

polio in Africa – so the centenary of her birth

eventually eradicated that scourge of mankind.

meaning something causing much pain and suffering.

Henrietta's role in eradicating this terrible disease

is all the more remarkable as she was never asked

permission to use her cells for research,

and it's taken decades for the Lacks family

to win their grandmother the recognition she deserves.

That's why John Burn calls Henrietta's contribution unwitting –

it was made without her knowledge or consent.

And with the eyes of the world now focused on vaccines

for the coronavirus, this year is a symbolic

the one hundredth anniversary of an important event.

Henrietta Lacks - a remarkable woman whose name is

finally making its way into the history books.

I asked you which important medical breakthrough

Discovered by Canadian doctor Frederick Banting,

insulin saved the lives of millions of diabetics.

And on that healthy note, let's recap the vocabulary

from this programme, starting with in vitro fertilization,