asking for "the full amount of [Thermo Fisher's] net profits". On July 31, 2023, Thermo Fisher Scientific settled with the Lacks family on undisclosed terms.

In February 2026, the Lacks family gained an out-of-court settlement with a second biotech company, Switzerland-based Novartis. Details of the settlement have not been made public. Lawsuits against several other drug companies are still ongoing.

Recognition

thumb|A [[historical marker memorializing Henrietta Lacks in Clover, Virginia]]

thumb|A park named in honor of Henrietta Lacks in Baltimore, Maryland

In 1996, Morehouse School of Medicine held its first annual HeLa Women's Health Conference. Led by physician Roland Pattillo, the conference is held to give recognition to Henrietta Lacks, her cell line, and "the valuable contribution made by African Americans to medical research and clinical practice". The mayor of Atlanta declared the date of the first conference, October 11, 1996, "Henrietta Lacks Day".

Lacks's contributions continue to be celebrated at yearly events in Turner Station. At one such event in 1997, then-U.S. Congressman from Maryland, Robert Ehrlich, presented a congressional resolution recognizing Lacks and her contributions to medical science and research.

In 2010, the Johns Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translational Research established the annual Henrietta Lacks Memorial Lecture Series, to honor Henrietta Lacks and the global impact of HeLa cells on medicine and research.

In 2011, Morgan State University in Baltimore granted Lacks a posthumous honorary doctorate in public service. Also in 2011, the Evergreen School District in Vancouver, Washington, named their new high school focused on medical careers the Henrietta Lacks Health and Bioscience High School, becoming the first organization to memorialize her publicly by naming a school in her honor.

In 2014, Lacks was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame. In 2017, a minor planet in the main asteroid belt was named "359426 Lacks" in her honor.

In 2018, The New York Times published a belated obituary for her, as part of the Overlooked history project. Also in 2018, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of African-American History and Culture jointly announced the accession of a portrait of Lacks by Kadir Nelson.

On October 6, 2018, Johns Hopkins University announced plans to name a research building in honor of Lacks. The announcement was made at the 9th annual Henrietta Lacks Memorial Lecture in the Turner Auditorium in East Baltimore by Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels and Paul B. Rothman, CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine and dean of the medical faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, surrounded by several of Lacks's descendants. "Through her life and her immortal cells, Henrietta Lacks made an immeasurable impact on science and medicine that has touched countless lives around the world," Daniels said. "This building will stand as a testament to her transformative impact on scientific discovery and the ethics that must undergird its pursuit. We at Johns Hopkins are profoundly grateful to the Lacks family for their partnership as we continue to learn from Mrs. Lacks's life and to honor her enduring legacy." The building will adjoin the Berman Institute of Bioethics' Deering Hall, located at the corner of Ashland and Rutland Avenues and "will support programs that enhance participation and partnership with members of the community in research that can benefit the community, as well as extend the opportunities to further study and promote research ethics and community engagement in research through an expansion of the Berman Institute and its work."

In 2021, the Henrietta Lacks Enhancing Cancer Research Act of 2019 became law; it states the Government Accountability Office must complete a study about barriers to participation that exist in cancer clinical trials that are federally funded for populations that have been underrepresented in such trials.

In October 2021, the University of Bristol unveiled a statue of Lacks at Royal Fort House in the city. The sculpture was created by Helen Wilson-Roe and was the first statue of a black woman made by a black woman for a public space in the United Kingdom.

On October 13, 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) presented the Director General Award to Lawrence Lacks, the son of Henrietta Lacks, in recognition of her unknowing contribution to science and medicine. Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the WHO, said: "I cannot think of any other single cell line or lab reagent that's been used to this extent and has resulted in so many advances."

On December 19, 2022, it was announced that a bronze statue honoring Henrietta Lacks would be erected in Roanoke, Virginia's Henrietta Lacks Plaza, previously named Lee Plaza after Confederate General Robert E. Lee. A statue of Lee was removed from the site in the wake of the protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. The Lacks statue was unveiled on October 4, 2023.

On June 13, 2023, Loudoun County Public Schools Board members approved naming a new school Henrietta Lacks Elementary School in Aldie, Virginia. The school serves more than 800 students from preschool through 2nd grade and opened in August 2024.

The question of how and whether her race affected her treatment, the lack of obtaining consent, and her relative obscurity continues to be controversial. In the medical world, this case brings up bioethical concerns with informed consent, medical records privacy, and communication with tissue donors and research participants.

The HeLa cell line's connection to Henrietta Lacks was first brought to popular attention in March 1976 with a pair of articles in the Detroit Free Press and Rolling Stone written by reporter Michael Rogers, though Rogers erroneously states her name as Helen Lane. In 1998, Adam Curtis directed a BBC documentary about Henrietta Lacks called The Way of All Flesh.

Rebecca Skloot documented extensive histories of both the HeLa cell line and the Lacks family in two articles published in 2000 and in her 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot worked with Deborah Lacks, who was determined to learn more about her mother, on the book.

HBO announced in 2010 that Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball were developing a film project based on Skloot's book, and in 2016 filming commenced. with Winfrey in the leading role of Deborah Lacks, Henrietta's daughter. The film The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was released in 2017, with Renée Elise Goldsberry portraying Lacks. Sons David Lacks Jr. and Zakariyya Rahman and granddaughter Jeri Lacks were consultants for the film.

HBO also commissioned Kadir Nelson for an oil painting of Lacks. In 2018, the portrait was jointly acquired by the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. The wallpaper in the painting is made up of the "Flower of Life" alluding to the immortality of her cells. The flowers on her dress resemble images of cell structures, and the two missing buttons on her dress symbolize her cells taken without permission.

NBC's Law & Order aired its own fictionalized version of Lacks's story in the 2010 episode "Immortal", which Slate referred to as "shockingly close to the true story" and the musical groups Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine and Yeasayer both released songs about Henrietta Lacks and her legacy.

Members of the Lacks family wrote their own stories for the first time in 2013, when Lacks's oldest son and his wife, Lawrence and Bobbette Lacks, wrote a short digital memoir called "Hela Family Stories: Lawrence and Bobbette", with first-hand accounts of their memories of Henrietta Lacks while she was alive and of their own efforts to keep the youngest children out of unsafe living environments following their mother's death.

The HeLa Project, a multimedia exhibition to honor Lacks, opened in 2017 in Baltimore at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture. It included a portrait by Kadir Nelson and a poem by Saul Williams.

HeLa, a play by Chicago playwright J. Nicole Brooks, was commissioned by Sideshow Theatre Company in 2016, with a public staged reading on July 31, 2017. The play was produced by Sideshow at Chicago's Greenhouse Theater Center from November 18 to December 23, 2018. The play uses Lacks's life story as a jumping point for a larger conversation about Afrofuturism, scientific progress, and bodily autonomy.

In the series El Ministerio del Tiempo, the immortality of her cells in the lab is cited as the precedent for the character Arteche's "extreme resistance to infections, to injuries, and to cellular degeneration. In other words to aging": that his cells are immortal.

In the Netflix original movie Project Power (2020), the case of Henrietta Lacks is cited by one of the villains of the story as an example of unwilling trials giving rise to advances for the greater good.

The JJ Doom album Key to the Kuffs (2012) includes the song "Winter Blues" that contains the lyrics "We could live forever like Henrietta Lacks cells".

Yeasayer wrote a song about Lacks, entitled "Henrietta," for their 2012 album Fragrant World.

In 2020, playwright Sandra Seaton wrote a one-woman piece titled Call Me By My Name, focusing on Henrietta Lacks. The piece was performed by actress Tracey Bonner at the 2020 Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, depicting Henrietta Lacks discussing her life and the impact she had on science, eventually demanding that people 'call me by my name' when referencing the breakthroughs made possible by the study of the tumors that ended her life.

See also

  • List of contaminated cell lines
  • Moore v. Regents of the University of California
  • History of medicine in the United States

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

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  • The Way of All Flesh, 1997 documentary about Henrietta Lacks by Adam Curtis.
  • The Henrietta Lacks Foundation, a foundation established to, among other things, help provide scholarship funds and health insurance to Henrietta Lacks's family.
  • Michael A. Rogers, The Double-Edged Helix, Rolling Stone March 25, 1976
  • "25 Years after Death, Black Mother's Cells Live for Cancer Study", Jet, April 1, 1976
  • "Henrietta's Tumor", 2010 RadioLab segment featuring Deborah Lacks and audio of Skloot's interviews with her, and original recordings of scenes from the book.
  • "The Immortal Henrietta Lacks", February 2010 CBS Sunday Morning segment featuring the Lacks Family, February 2010