19 Sep My uncle is a scientist

Another thing that my sister got to do while she was in Sydney was visit our Uncle's laboratory, where he is currently “growing stuff from a lady from the 1800s” as my sister described it.

My Uncle gave better details in an email to my Mum.

“They were HeLa cells, one of the first cell lines to be grown successfully in a lab. They were taken from Henrietta Lacks in 1951, without her knowledge.

There is a good write up on them here about the ongoing ethics of this cell line. 60+ years later there is still a lot of controversy, despite the fact that these cells have probably saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives.

https://www.nature.com/news/deal-done-over-hela-cell-line-1.13511?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20130808” 

My sister said it was very cool to get to visit the lab and there was lots of fun and interesting things.

She was also particularly impressed about getting a pipette that had not been touched by human hands, until she opened the packet.