Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks (born Loretta Pleasant; August 1, 1920 – died October 4, 1951) was an American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. An immortalized cell line will reproduce indefinitely under specific conditions, and the HeLa cell line continues to be a source of invaluable medical data to the present day.