Henrietta Lacks' heirs are suing a drug company that profited off her cancer cells that were taken without her consent

• Henrietta Lacks' estate is suing the drug company that has been profiting off of the woman's cancer cells, according to The Guardian.
• The lawsuit asks for the full amount of profits from the cells as well as permission from the estate to use the cells in the future.
• The cells have been used in a number of medical breakthroughs such as the polio vaccine and DNA gene mapping.

Henrietta Lacks' heirs sued the drug company that used her cells for profit without her consent, The Guardian reported.

Lacks, a Black woman who died from cervical cancer, unknowingly had cancer cells taken from her by doctors at Johns Hopkins in 1951. Known as HeLa cells, her cancer cells have been used in scientific breakthroughs such as the polio vaccine and DNA gene mapping, according to The Guardian.

The "HeLa cell line became the first human cells successfully cloned" and are used "for research that has touched nearly every realm of medicine", lawyers for the estate said in a news release, according to The Guardian.

The woman's heirs are claiming that Thermo Fisher Scientific mass-produced and sold Lacks' tissue containing her cancer cells. Now, they are asking the drug company to "disgorge the full amount of its net profits obtained by commercializing the HeLa cell line to the Estate of Henrietta Lacks," The Guardian reported.

The lawsuit would also require permission from Lacks' estate to use the HeLa cells going forward.

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