Summary “The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” from page 34 until page 66.

George Gey was born in 1899 and grew up on a Pittsburgh hillside.   He made the laboratory his home away from home where Henrietta’s cells were studied the first time.  In addition, he graduated with a degree in Biology from the University of Pittsburgh.  Also, he was a very ingenious person because if he got an idea, he worked hard at it no matter what it was.   For example, he invented the roller-tube culturing technique that was his most important invention.   Gey, Mary Kubicek and Margaret were the first people who experimented with Henrietta’s cells.  They were trying to keep all kinds of living cell a life such as: Rabbits cells, Rats cells, Guinea Pigs cells and cow cells but they always died, but Henrietta’s cells never died.

Henrietta spent two days at Hopkins hospital after her first radium treatment to treat her tumor. Doctors checked her and said she was fine and she could return to her house.  Furthermore, she came back for a second treatment of radium, two and a half weeks later.   Two days after her treatment, Mary checked Henrietta’s cells that were in the incubator room and saw that they were growing and multiplying.  As a result, Mary had to use a lot of test tubes to divide Henrietta’s cells.  Gey was excited with what was happening and told a few of his closet colleagues about the first immortal human cells growing in his laboratory.  Gey appeared on WAAM television in Baltimore for a special show about his work with cells.   After that he began to send Henrietta’s cells to any scientist who could use them for cancer research. When Henrietta returned to her home, she resumed her normal activities.   Time passed, she went to see the doctor, he noted that her cervix was a little red and inflamed but he did not see any tumor.  Consequently, Henrietta had to start X-ray therapy every day for a month at the hospital.   Her husband could not take her because he worked at nights and she told her cousins about her medical condition she was having.   After, she started x-ray therapy she began to fell weak from the treatment.   Each day that passed, she had trouble walking toward her cousin house.  Henrietta was always complaining about her abdominal discomfort to different doctors but they could not find anything wrong with her.   Two and half weeks later, she returned to the hospital because she still had pain and she could not urinate and the doctor passed a catheter to empty her bladder and the doctor send her back again to her house.   Later, she arrived at the hospital for her treatment and she preferred to stay there because she was having a lot of pain.

Alexis Carrel a French surgeon at the Rockefeller Institute, he was the first person who grew “Immortal Chicken Heart”, but also he invented the first technique for suturing blood vessels together and coronary by-pass.  After he died, the chicken heart died too.