Aggregated News
When Lars Steinmetz and his team published the genome of the world’s most famous human cell line earlier this month1, they did not imagine that the work would become a bioethical lightning rod. He and his group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, saw the HeLa cell genome as a helpful resource for their work examining how gene variants influence basic biological functions, and for the countless other scientists studying the same cell line.
But the descendants of Henrietta Lacks — whose cervical tumour gave rise to HeLa cells — saw otherwise, as did other scientists and bioethicists. They have criticized the decision to publish the sequence, noting that the HeLa cell line was established without Lacks’s consent (around the time she died in 1951) and that aspects of what Steinmetz and his team have published may disclose genetic traits borne by surviving family members.
In response, Steinmetz and his team pulled the genomic data from public databases. “We were surprised, we did not expect this to happen at all,” Steinmetz says. “We wanted...
But the descendants of Henrietta Lacks — whose cervical tumour gave rise to HeLa cells — saw otherwise, as did other scientists and bioethicists. They have criticized the decision to publish the sequence, noting that the HeLa cell line was established without Lacks’s consent (around the time she died in 1951) and that aspects of what Steinmetz and his team have published may disclose genetic traits borne by surviving family members.
In response, Steinmetz and his team pulled the genomic data from public databases. “We were surprised, we did not expect this to happen at all,” Steinmetz says. “We wanted...