It took more than 70 years for some justice to be done to Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old black woman who died in 1951 from cervical cancer. From her were the first human cells that were successfully cloned and reproduced countless times in laboratories around the world until they became a mainstay of modern medicine: this cell line, which was renamed HeLa cells, with the first syllable of his first and last name, contributed to countless medical advances, such as polio vaccine or cancer research. But all of this occurred without Lacks's consent or knowledge, neither in the extraction nor in its use. Now, the family of the woman whose cells have been key to medicine in recent decades has reached an agreement with Thermo Fisher, one of the companies—it was not the only one—that became rich by cultivating her cells without permission, and they will be compensated, to avoid a judicial process.
