She Died in 1951 Her Cells Are Still Alive Today

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]There is a woman who died in 1951 and her cells are still alive today. Her name was Henrietta Lacks. She had cervical cancer. Doctors took a sample of her tumor cells and [music] those cells did something no human cell had ever done before. Normal human cells divide [music] 50 to 70 times then they stop. This is called Hayflick limit.

[00:00:21]This happens because the telomeres, the protective cap on our chromosomes, get shorter with every division. But Henrietta's cancer cell had an enzyme called telomerase. Telomerase kept rebuilding those telomeres again and again and hence those cells never aged and therefore they never stopped dividing. Scientists called these cells as HeLa cells. Today, HeLa cells have been used in over 70,000 researches including the development of polio vaccine. One woman dead for 70 years still saving lives through her cell.

[00:00:55]That is the power of biology. If you learned something new today, follow I Find Stories Behind Science because stories stick more strongly with us.