Communication Gap

I studied immortal HeLa cells * at university. I knew there was a mystery about their origin, but had no idea anyone involved thought something like this:

We’ve got your wife. She’s alive in a laboratory. We’ve been doing research on her for the last 25 years. And now we have to test your kids to see if they have cancer.

Amazing story. Thanks to Rebecca Skloot for documenting this.

* "Immortal cells" is a misnomer. The cells are mortal, but the cell line appears not to be.