Chapter 20: The HeLa Bomb
For this chapter I relied on communications and other documents housed at the AMCA and
the TCAA, and on “The Proceedings of the Second Decennial Review Conference on Cell
Tissue and Organ Culture, The Tissue Culture Association, Held on September 11–15, 1966,”
National Cancer Institute Monographs 58, no. 26 (November 15, 1967).
The vast number of scientific papers about culture contamination include S. M. Gartler,
“Apparent HeLa Cell Contamination of Human Heteroploid Cell Lines,” Nature 217 (February
4, 1968); N. Auerspberg and S. M. Gartler, “Isoenzyme Stability in Human Heteroploid Cell
Lines,” Experimental Cell Research 61 (August 1970); E. E. Fraley, S. Ecker, and M. M. Vin-
cent, “Spontaneous in Vitro Neoplastic Transformation of Adult Human Prostatic Epithelium,”
Science 170, no. 3957 (October 30, 1970); A. Yoshida, S. Watanabe, and S. M. Gartler,
“Identification of HeLa Cell Glucose 6-phosphate Dehydrogenase,” Biochemical Genetics 5
(1971); W. D. Peterson et al., “Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Isoenzymes in Human
Cell Cultures Determined by Sucrose-Agar Gel and Cellulose Acetate Zymograms,” Proceed-
ings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine 128, no. 3 (July 1968); Y. Matsuya
and H. Green, “Somatic Cell Hybrid Between the Established Human Line D98 (presumptive
HeLa) and 3T3,” Science 163, no. 3868 (February 14, 1969); and C. S. Stulberg, L. Coriell, et
al., “The Animal Cell Culture Collection,” In Vitro 5 (1970).
For a detailed account of the contamination controversy, see A Conspiracy of Cells, by Mi-
chael Gold.