Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951 at the age of just 31. At the time, many hospitals in the US practised segregating black patients from white patients, which reduced her options for seeking treatment. She ended up at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, in a ward located down the hall from George Gey, a researcher who had been attempting to grow human cells in his lab for decades. Her doctor sent some of her cells to Gey without her consent, changing the course of medicine forever. (warning: language)
