“Everyone in the audience knew what that meant. On top of saying they’d possibly wasted more than a decade and millions of research dollars, Gartler was also suggesting that spontaneous transformation—one of the most celebrated prospects for finding a cure for cancer—might not exist. Normal cells didn’t spontaneously become cancerous, he said; they were simply taken over by HeLa.” HelaHenrietta LacksHuman CellsAtccCulture ContaminationGenetic MarkerStanley Gartler Book:The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Source: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks