A US National Institutes of Health (NIH) committee approved the first uses of genomic data from the HeLa cell line on 16 September. The HeLa Genome Data Access Working Group includes representatives of the family of Henrietta Lacks, the African American woman whose fatal cervical tumour gave rise to the HeLa cell line in 1951.
The announcement follows several months of negotiations between Lacks family members and NIH leadership, including director Francis Collins. The talks resulted in an agreement in which researchers must seek permission to use HeLa genome data generated by independent teams at the University of Washington in Seattle and the European Molecular Biology Lab in Heidelberg, Germany.
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