Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer and loving mother of four children, was an unsung hero for too long. After her doctor collected cells from her cervical cancer tumor in 1951, Henrietta unwittingly had an integral role in the transformation of biomedical research over that past six decades.
Advances in genomic sequencing hold enormous opportunities for more precise diagnosis of pediatric cancer and then targeting therapies toward the genetic alterations that are driving individuals’ disease.
