Teaching My Students About Henrietta Lacks

When I used to teach Intro Biology, I would include the story of Henrietta Lacks. Every year that I would teach about her, my students would watch the movie adaptation of her story. One year I even had them read the best-selling book about her, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I always found myself drawn in and deeply moved by her story no matter how many times I reheard it. The story often left an impression on my students as well.. They were often shocked that something so clearly unethical and unjust happened in real life. Most of the time my students had never heard of her, but after learning her story, I was hopeful that they would never forget her. I know I never could.

How could I forget the true story of an African American woman whose cells were taken from her without her knowledge or consent, propagated by scientists for decades (because her cancer cells were immortal), and used in research and sold to labs across the world for profit? How could I forget the story of yet another life lost too soon to cancer? How could I forget a woman whose cells outlived her and saved countless lives? How could I forget the deeply troubling circumstances that brought about her immortality and through which we have come to know about her?

The assignment

One year I assigned discussion questions about Henrietta and her cells: “Do you think they carry some essence of Henrietta? How do you think you would perceive cells from someone close to you that grow in culture in a laboratory?” I cannot take the credit for writing these questions, but when I came across them, I liked how they helped contextualize the cells my students were learning about and invited my students to connect with Henrietta’s story in a deeply personal way by putting themselves in the shoes of her family. Cells were no longer just an abstract concept or drawing in a textbook, they were parts of real living people like Henrietta with families and stories of their own.

Many of my students connected to Henrietta’s story in ways they didn’t connect with other material they were learning about in class. When I took a close look at some of my student’s discussion responses, it was clear that they were engaging with more than just the biology they were learning in class—they were connecting with someone else’s story, bringing their own experiences and convictions into the conversation. I share some of their anonymous verbatim responses below to give you a glimpse into my students’ responses:

The intersection of science and society

I asked my students other questions as well about Henrietta’s story, as there are many teaching resources available online to facilitate discussions in the classroom. But this might have been the only question that I myself didn’t quite know how to answer.

Do our cells carry some essence of us? How would I perceive cells from someone close to me that grow in culture in a laboratory? I could draw on my own background in biology considering somehow that cells construct our bodies and store the DNA that makes us uniquely us, and yet they in and of themselves are not us, at least not fully. Perhaps, they are only a part of us, and contain in a limited sense some of our essence. I could draw on my own experience as someone whose family has been impacted by cancer, even losing a loved one and friends to it, but this was nothing even close to what happened to Henrietta and her family.

When it comes to reflecting on whether Henrietta’s cells in particular contained some of her essence, I could consider the fact that her cells used today in labs across the world are not the original cells removed from her. They are descendants of her original cancer cells that underwent rounds and rounds of division, so much so that the total number of her cells that have been grown in labs over the years exceeds the number of cells in the human body, in her body. Her cells have also incurred mutations over the years such that they are not completely genetically identical to the original ones. But to Henrietta’s family, her cells were everything—the closest thing they had to a woman they knew as mom, wife, or friend—and her memory lives on through her cells, doing good for the world.