After all this talk about the HeLa cells this week, I decided to look into the concept of immortalized cells. There are a different type of immortal cells known as Jurkat cells. They are lymphocyte cells and are used in leukemia testing and cell signaling. They are considered important because of the cells' ability to produce interleukin 2.
The cell line was established in the late 1970s (decades after Henrietta) and originate from a fourteen year old boy with leukemia.
When I found this out, the first thing that came to mid was the child's age. Obviously there had to have parental consent, and surely the kid's name would not be released because he/she was a minor.
I know we play around with the what ifs, but a lot of the Henrietta Lacks debate stems from the lack of consent and the moral issue of the success of the cell in medicine. The Jurkat cells seem to have been consented and are only really known in the medical. But I imagined a scenario where this 14 year old was in Henrietta Lacks time. Would "experimentation" with a child's blood cells been just as controversial? Obviously it is hard to imagine, but it is very thought provoking.
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