Month: February 2020

Using Cells now and in 1950s

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When thinking about how different it would be nowadays if what happened with the HeLa cells happened in the present day, there would be a lot of differences to the reactions of people when they find out. I feel like there would be a stronger reaction to finding out someone’s cells were taken without their permission. People’s rights and ethical decisions are thought of more. This would have also been a big scandal type of situation for the hospital which would lead to more press and media being involved.

If I was in the 1950s and I found out about this, I don’t think I would have reacted the same as I would have been less knowledgeable about people’s rights and other important information about the ethics involved in medical procedures. This would be due to a lack of resources and a different method of research than we have in the present day. Also the story of the cells being took from someone without their permission wouldn’t of traveled far even if people knew about it and discussed it, as the media wasn’t as developed in fast communication as it is now.

This would definitely be a topic able to be discussed in TOK as it links with Ethics and can be discussed in the Natural sciences AOK.

Guest Speaker

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When we had a guest speaker discussing her experience of the HeLa cells it was really interesting to find out about medical opinion of the HeLa cells. Dr Srivastrava told us how she works with the cells often, she referred to them as a daily ‘bread and butter’ implying that it’s a common practice to use them. When she found out about the cells from an article, she said she forwarded it to her colleagues as it was something really shocking for her and she didn’t know about it. 

We learnt about the cells and she talked about different uses of the cells and other medical information to help us develop more knowledge of things that can help us better understand the cells. I found learning about this interesting as even though I didn’t choose biology as my science choice, learning more about the body and different things that are involved.