THREE GREAT SCIENTISTS YOU NEVER KNEW ALIQUAM
George and Margaret Gey
were a husband and wife research team who were looking for a cure for cancer. George and Margaret felt that if they could grow cancer cells outside the body, they could study how cancer cells look and act which they felt could help lead to a cure. Margaret had been trained as a surgical nurse who specialized in sterilization techniques. This training helped her in her research with her husband. She knew how to create a sterile atmosphere for culturing cells. George was very inventive. He helped develop the culture medium that would allow them to grow cancer cells outside the body. He also invented the whirligig, a machine that simulated the movement cells would experience inside the body.
The Connections...
Dr. TeLinde wanted to grow cervical cancer cells outside the body , so that he could study carcinoma in situ and invasive carcinoma cells to prove his theory. He got in touch with the Geys and offered to provide all the cervical cancer tissues they would need for their own research. One of those samples was from a woman named Henrietta Lacks who had cervical cancer. From that sample, Gey and his wife were able to grow the first immortal cell line - the HeLa cell line. Now, Richard TeLinde could prove his theory that carcinoma in situ and invasive carcinoma were just different stages of the same cancer. The research also allowed doctors to have a clearer idea of what cancer and precancer cells looked like. This helped Papanicolaou reach his goal of lowering the cervical cancer death rate.
AUTHORS:
KENZIE M., TAMMY CHRISTIAN S
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