2023 Conference Sponsorship: Tier 5 (Henrietta Lacks Scholarship)

The Henrietta Lacks Scholarship Sponsor ($200) Includes one conference registration and meal. Featured on virtual and printed promotional materials as the funder of scholarships for up to 6 students or young professionals to attend the conference. About the scholarship namesake, Henrietta Lacks: Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951) was an African-American woman and tobacco farmer 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. As was then the practice, no consent was required to culture the cells obtained from Lacks's treatment. Neither she nor her family were compensated for the extraction or use of the HeLa cells. Even though some information about the origins of HeLa's immortalized cell lines was known to researchers after 1970, the Lacks family was not made aware of the line's existence until 1975. Her experience brought to light concerns for patient privacy and consent.