Settlement with family of Henrietta Lacks is an opportunity to reflect on inequalities in genetic research

The HeLa line of immortal human epithelial cancer cells was derived from cells taken from Henrietta Lacks when she was a cancer patient in 1951. (Wellcome Collection: Anne Weston, Francis Crick Institute), CC BY-NC

Aug. 1, 2023 would have been Henrietta Lacks’s 103rd birthday. It was also the day the Lacks family reached a settlement with Thermo Fisher Scientific, the biotech company that used and profited from her “HeLa” cells.

Though the details remain confidential, this settlement is a long-awaited moment of justice and victory for Lacks and her family.