Picornaviruses<\/a> are a large family of viral miscreants that includes poliovirus, human rhinovirus (the major cause of the common cold), hepatitis A virus and my own favourite, foot-and-mouth disease virus.\u00a0I like viruses and I like Europic — I’ve been coming to the conference\u00a0since 1991. A large part of its appeal is the conviviality of the participants, many of whom I greet like old friends, even though our only contact is a few days together every other year.<\/p>\n But I also enjoy the\u00a0breadth<\/em> of the science. We come to scrutinise the life cycles of these tiny molecular pathogens, and the sickness and death that ensues when they gain entry to the cells of the body to initiate an infection.<\/p>\n All aspects are covered on a scale that ranges from the atomic to the planetary.\u00a0We dissect the atomic details of how the virus molecules interact with host cell proteins, review the reorganisation of the cell interior that occurs as the viruses commandeer its protein manufacturing centres, discuss how the sickened host marshals its defences against the invader and debate the merits of ongoing plans to eradicate the scourge of polio<\/a> from the face of the earth.<\/p>\n Though my own focus is usually fixed at the atomic and molecular end of the spectrum of investigation, over the years I have gradually absorbed the cellular, organismal and epidemiological studies that are helping to flesh out a complete picture of virus infection.<\/p>\n So I try to stay tuned in all the talks. But this year there has been something different about the conference. It hasn’t happened in every talk but from time to time, after the same visual or audible cue, I am suddenly aware that there is someone new at Europic, someone I hadn’t noticed before. Her name is Henrietta Lacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n The cue is in the mention of her cells, which are known by the four letter diminutive, HeLa — not a name of her choosing. HeLa cells have been growing — multiplying in numbers — in laboratories all over the world since they were taken from Henrietta in\u00a0Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore\u00a0back in 1951. She died in great pain shortly afterwards leaving a young family of five children and never knew that she changed the world. She never knew that the biopsy taken from her cervical tumour would establish the first immortal culture of human cells.<\/p>\n I know this because I read Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks <\/em>over the summer. This fascinating\u00a0book<\/a> gives\u00a0a forensic and moving account of the tremendous impact that HeLa cells have had on scientific research and the wretched wound of anguish that science inflicted on her family. I don’t intend to give a detailed review since that ground has been well convered by Mark Henderson<\/a> and Ed Yong<\/a> among others<\/a>, but it’s a fantastic read. Skloot has a firm grip on the research into cancer, virology and cell biology that was so stimulated by the establishment of a human cell-line that could be grown in bottles in the laboratory. But more importantly, the book brings Henrietta to fleshy life again by telling the story of her children’s struggles to come to terms with their mother’s living legacy. They knew nothing of the biopsy and only discovered many years later that her cells were still alive; they never benefitted from the millions that were made by selling HeLa cells to researchers.<\/p>\n The book recovers a story that was nearly erased from history because none of the scientists who worked to establish the HeLa cell line had any contact with Henrietta’s family; and few of those who used her cells in their research considered their origin.<\/p>\n It is a story worth telling — not just because it serves to remind scientists of the value of retaining some sense of the people they use, and the people they might hope to serve.\u00a0Skloot’s journalistic eye (and tenacious investigation) captures a wealth of detail in uncovering the drama of the Lacks family.\u00a0Their human story is more gripping than the scientific one, though never more so than when the two intersect. One of the most poignant episodes in the book is when cell biologist Christoph Lengauer, who has been contacted by Skloot, invites two of Henrietta’s children to look into his microscope to see their mother’s cells for the very first time, fifty years after she died.<\/p>\n I’ve seen HeLa cells myself in the microscope but I never thought much about them beyond counting their number to check that my cultures were thriving. I grew HeLa back in the mid-nineties, litres at a time, to infect with poliovirus. This provided milligrams of purified virus particles that I could use to examine how poliovirus shifted and shimmied to trick its way <\/a>into a susceptible cell. I didn’t know where the cells came from — sorry, who<\/em> they came from. I was focused on the science, thinking only of how to get my experiments to work. I had quickly swallowed the pseudonym — Helen Lane — that had been put out by the scientists at Johns Hopkins to ‘protect’ Henrietta’s anonymity and never paused to question the circumstances of their origin.<\/p>\n But I have now. And this year at Europic whenever I hear “we infected HeLa cells” or “here you can see the effect in HeLa” or noticed that four-letter label on a slide, the image of Henrietta floats into my mind’s eye. Hands on hips, smiling, she is here, watching us, following the proceedings.<\/p>\n In reality, of course, she’s not here and she’s not aware of our discussions. But in the darkened conference hall I still feel the need to nod acknowledgement and whisper “Thanks.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" She’s here. She’s in the room. I’ve not noticed her before — not in previous years — but every now and then her presence is unmistakable. I am sitting in a lecture theatre in St Andrews University in Scotland, attending … Continue reading ![\"Europic](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4150\/5010108896_20c1ced6c6.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Henrietta_Lacks_(1920-1951).jpg\"](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/d\/d7\/Henrietta_Lacks_%281920-1951%29.jpg\")
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