BIOLOGIST

Henrietta Lacks

1920 - 1951

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Henrietta Lacks (born Loretta Pleasant; August 1, 1920 – October 4, 1951) was an African-American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. An immortalized cell line reproduces indefinitely under specific conditions, and the HeLa cell line continues to be a source of invaluable medical data to the present day. Lacks was the unwitting source of these cells from a tumor biopsied during treatment for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1951. These cells were then cultured by George Otto Gey, who created the cell line known as HeLa, which is still used for medical research. Read more on Wikipedia

Her biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Henrietta Lacks is the 357th most popular biologist (down from 264th in 2019), the 3,122nd most popular biography from United States (down from 2,457th in 2019) and the 66th most popular American Biologist.

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Among BIOLOGISTS

Among biologists, Henrietta Lacks ranks 357 out of 1,097. Before her are David Julius, Craig Mello, Moritz Wagner, Craig Venter, Daniel Solander, and Theodore Gill. After her are Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach, Friedrich Loeffler, Eugenius Warming, Humberto Maturana, Fritz Müller, and Antoine Béchamp.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1920, Henrietta Lacks ranks 134. Before her are Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Albert Memmi, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, Saul Bass, Eva Dahlbeck, and Miguel Delibes. After her are Marie Tharp, Andrew V. McLaglen, Yevgeny Dragunov, Richard Adams, Thomas Gold, and Dick Francis. Among people deceased in 1951, Henrietta Lacks ranks 63. Before her are Mikhail Borodin, Yoshio Nishina, Osman Batur, Louis Jouvet, Ali Sami Yen, and Géza Maróczy. After her are Wols, Tadeusz Borowski, Vilhelm Bjerknes, Algernon Blackwood, Du Yuesheng, and Jakow Trachtenberg.

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Others Deceased in 1951

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Henrietta Lacks ranks 3,122 out of 20,380. Before her are Raymond Smullyan (1919), Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe (1822), Marian Anderson (1897), Sofia Coppola (1971), Mimsy Farmer (1945), and Theodore Gill (1837). After her are J. T. Walsh (1943), Gloria Leonard (1940), Robert Reid (1862), Barry E. Wilmore (1962), Maurice White (1941), and Lindsay Lohan (1986).

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Among BIOLOGISTS In United States

Among biologists born in United States, Henrietta Lacks ranks 66. Before her are Brian Kobilka (1955), Phillip Allen Sharp (1944), David Julius (1955), Craig Mello (1960), Craig Venter (1946), and Theodore Gill (1837). After her are Joel Asaph Allen (1838), Frank Chapman (1864), Esther Lederberg (1922), James Bond (1900), Harold E. Varmus (1939), and Martha Chase (1927).

American born Biologists

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