Who Am I? This person I never heard of before doing some research on her. You would think that sometime during my 65+ years I would have heard something about someone with such a rare condition. I wonder if there are other people like her out there in the world? Answer to last weeks Who Am I: Mata Hari Howdy y’all. It’s me, ninong7 aka UJ aka John. Just a short intro about myself. I am a Texan that has retired in the Philippines. I moved to the Philippines with my wife back in May 2010. I am retired from the US Air Force. The music I like is mostly Classic Country and Classic Rock. I guess you could say that I am “Classic”. I play dominoes when I can find someone that will play, I play chess, cribbage, spades, hearts, Empire Builder, Rail Baron, Acquire and a few other games. I like to write poems and stories (although pretty novice) and I love learning about history, just about any history. I’m at home on my computer a lot but if I could afford to, I’d be traveling and documenting my travels to post in my blog. I hope to get to know a lot of you through PeakD and Discord.
I was born on August 1, 1920.
An African American woman.
I was a poor tobacco farmer from Virginia.
I am the source of the HeLa cell line (my blood contained uniquely immortal cells that can live outside my body indefinitely).
My cells can be found in the trillions in laboratories around the world.
My cells have been used by medical researchers studying not only cancer but also hemophilia, influenza, leukemia, and Parkinson’s disease.
My cells were also used in developing the polio vaccine, the cancer drug tamoxifen, chemotherapy, gene mapping, and a whole host of other uses.
Although I died on October 4, 1951, my cells, to this day, live on.
