Both Wired and Popular Science had articles on Henrietta Lacks in February. Who is this amazing woman?

Henrietta Lacks (August 1, 1920 – October 4, 1951) was the unwitting donor of cells from her cancerous tumor, which were cultured by George Otto Gey to create an immortal cell line for medical research. This is now known as the HeLa cell line.^[1]

Her cells are unlike any other cultivated today:

Researchers "discovered that [Henrietta’s] cells did something they’d never seen before: They could be kept alive and grow."^[14] According to reporter Michael Rogers, the subsequent development of HeLa by a researcher at the hospital helped answer the demands of 10,000 who marched for a cure to polio just a few days before. By 1954, HeLa was used by Jonas Salk to develop a vaccine for polio.^[12] To test Salk’s new vaccine, the cells were quickly put into mass production in the first-ever cell production factory.^[15] Demand for the HeLa cells quickly grew. Since they were put into mass production, Henrietta’s cells have been mailed to scientists around the globe for "research into cancer, AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxic substances, gene mapping, and countless other scientific pursuits".^[12] HeLa cells have been used to test human sensitivity to tape, glue, cosmetics, and many other products.^{[citation needed]} Scientists have grown some 50 million metric tons of her cells. ^[16]

But most interesting is that her family never knew (or consented):

In her 2010 book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot documents the histories of both the HeLa cell line and the Lacks family. Henrietta’s husband, David Lacks, was told little following her death. Suspicions fueled by racial issues prevalent in the South were compounded by issues of class and education. For their part, members of the Lacks family were kept in the dark about the existence of the tissue line, and when its existence was revealed, family members were confused about how Henrietta’s cells could have been taken without consent and how they could still be alive 50 years after her death.

And how important are her cells? (From the Wired article)  More than 60,000 scientific papers have been written using her cells, and basically every major genetic finding has some link …

And all without her consent. I wonder if she would have agreed?