Henrietta Lacks’ Heir Fights Firm’s Bid to End Compensation Case

The personal representative of Henrietta Lacks’ estate should be allowed to proceed with a lawsuit to recover a share of the “staggering profits” a biotech firm made by commercializing the woman’s biological material, he told a federal court.

Henrietta Lacks is the origin of the first known “immortal cell line,” which has been used in developing the polio vaccine, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and other scientific and medical breakthroughs, according to Ron Lacks.

The woman’s story gained attention thanks to a 2010 book that later was adapted into a movie starring Oprah Winfrey as her daughter Deborah.

Henrietta’s cell ...