Henrietta Lacks statue design contest open to Southside residents

Henrietta Lacks, known as “the mother of modern medicine,” will be commemorated in her hometown in Halifax County by a statue designed by a Southern Virginia resident.

A statue design contest is underway and is accepting submissions until March 15.

The Henrietta Lacks Hometown Initiative, a Halifax-based grassroots committee, is launching the contest and is also behind the fundraising efforts for the life-sized statue. The fundraising goal of $100,000 is about 85% complete, according to a Feb. 23 news release.

The commission works to preserve the legacy of Lacks , who is credited with changing the world of medicine but went unrecognized for decades.

In 1951, Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer. During a biopsy, a sample of her cancerous cells were collected without her knowledge.

Doctors quickly realized that Lacks’ cells were unlike those of most other humans: Instead of dying, they reproduced indefinitely. Since then, this line of cells, now called “HeLa” cells after the first two letters of Lacks’ first and last names, has been crucial to medical research.

HeLa cells were used to develop the polio vaccine and have been involved in research on AIDS, cancer, COVID-19, HPV, Parkinson’s and many other conditions, long after Lacks’ death, eight months after her diagnosis.

It would not have been standard practice to obtain a patient’s consent before collecting a cell sample in 1951, a time when many hospitals would not even treat Black patients. So, despite her monumental contribution to medicine, neither Lacks nor her family was compensated.

“Even though Henrietta’s cells launched a multi-billion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, to date, her family has never received any of the revenues HeLa cells generated,” reads the website for HELA100 , a family-led initiative that began on Lacks’ 100th birthday in 2020.

In fact, Lacks’ family was unaware of the immortalized line of cells until decades after the initial sample was collected.

The nonconsensual cell sample and lack of compensation remain sticking points in this story. It’s difficult to reconcile the good that HeLa cells have done with the violation that they were borne out of, Hope Harris-Gayles, co-chair of the Henrietta Lacks Hometown Initiative, said in a 2022 interview.

“That’s the continuing struggle,” she said. “We just have to address it, tackle it head on. And let that be a springboard for conversations that we can have with the medical community and education and various stakeholder groups. Because there are certainly lots that we don’t want to repeat.”

In October 2021, the Lacks family filed a lawsuit on the grounds of unjust enrichment against Boston-based pharmaceutical company Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. In August 2023, the litigation was settled , though the terms were not released.

Education around Lacks has increased recently, and a statue and historical marker were dedicated to her last year in her birthplace of Roanoke.

But the Henrietta Lacks Hometown Initiative works specifically to preserve her legacy in Halifax, where she spent her childhood.

The committee’s regional statue design contest is open to anyone who lives in Southside Virginia.

“The winning submission will be framed and used as the inspiration for the permanent sculpture,” said the release.

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