Chapter 4: The Birth of HeLa
For information on Gey’s development of the roller drum, see “An Improved Technic for
Massive Tissue Culture,” American Journal of Cancer 17 (1933); for his early work filming
cells, see G. O. Gey and W. M. Firor, “Phase Contrast Microscopy of Living Cells,” Annals of
Surgery 125 (1946). For the abstract he eventually published documenting the initial growth of
the HeLa cell line, see G. O. Gey, W. D. Coffman, and M. T. Kubicek, “Tissue Culture Studies
of the Proliferative Capacity of Cervical Carcinoma and Normal Epithelium,” Cancer Research
12 (1952): 264–65. For a thorough discussion of his work on HeLa and other cultures, see G.
O. Gey, “Some Aspects of the Constitution and Behavior of Normal and Malignant Cells Main-
tained in Continuous Culture,” The Harvey Lecture Series L (1954–55).