SKIRMISHER

In 1951, 31-year-old Henrietta Lacks found blood on her underwear. She went to John Hopkins for a checkup, where she learned she had cervical cancer. Henrietta would die from the cancer in a few months, but tumor cells taken from her would not. In fact, those tumor cells would continue living and reproducing even in the present — and most probably thousands of years in the future. Now recognized as a new species called Helacyton gartleri, Henrietta’s tumor cells would become a shining example of evolution in action.

Now, HeLa cells are about as common in biological research as the lab rat and the petri dish, and are still being grown in an unbroken lineage from the cells originally harvested from Mrs. Lacks in 1951. They’re used in cancer research because a scientist can perform experiments on them that otherwise couldn’t be done on a living human being. They were also used in the development of the Polio vaccine, making Henrietta somewhat of a posthumous hero to millions.

But say you’re a scientist looking at HeLa cells under a microscope. They live independently of the body they came from. They reproduce (faster even than other cancerous cells). They consume, excrete, and do everything an independent living organism usually does. A thousand years from now there will still be HeLa cells multiplying and living, even some of the original cells sampled from Mrs. Lacks, even though Henrietta Lacks herself has long since passed away. Is this a new species?

In 1991 the scientific community decided it was, and blessed HeLa cells with its own genus and species: Helacyton gartleri, named by Van Valen & Maiorana.

Read more about this wonderful tale here. Wikipedia context here.

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