US-NEWS-CMP-JOHNSHOPKINS-LACKS-BZ

Lawrence Lacks, the oldest son of Henrietta Lacks, looks at a portrait of his mother during an unveiling in the Baltimore City Hall rotunda. Lacks' cells, later named HeLa cells, were taken without her consent while she was being treated at Johns Hopkins hospital for cervical cancer in 1951. Lacks died later that year, but her cells became the first immortal human cell line. (Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)