Z is for Zombies

The mention today about "zombie cells" reminded me of a book I read last year called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  The book tells the story of the HeLa line of cells that became the first immortal cell line.  Before the HeLa cells, cells cultured from other cells would only survive a few days, but something about the HeLa cells gave them the ability to be kept alive and grow indefinitely.  This first line of "immortal" cells led to countless medical breakthroughs, such as the polio vaccine, cancer research, research into the effects of radiation and toxic substances, gene mapping, and more.  Today, more than 20 tons of HeLa cells have been produced.

There is a story behind the HeLa cells, however.  They were taken from Henrietta Lacks, a black woman from Virginia who died of cancer.  Henrietta was from a poor family, was basically illiterate, but was fiercely devoted to her family.  The cells were taken from Henrietta unknowingly during one of her doctor's appointments, part of an ongoing practice at Johns Hopkins at the time of performing experiments or taking cells from unknowing black patients who would sign consent forms simply because they weren't able to read them.

This story reminds me of zombies because of the way the rest of the Lacks family reacted years later, when they found out about Henrietta's cells and everything that has been done with them.  The family was uneducated and didn't know much about science, so they truly believed that Henrietta still lived on.  They thought she had gone to the moon, had cured polio herself, and was now living inside other people - and this totally freaked them out.  The cells are like zombies in that they constantly replicate and are a sort of reincarnation for Henrietta.  Just like we have debated in class about how much identity remains in zombies, the Lacks family truly believed that Henrietta's soul lived on in those cells.

I decided to look more into the field of "zombie cells."  I found articles about zombie cells called senescent cells, which are responsible for impairments in the body that are responsible for aging.  These cells cause cells around them to act improperly by spreading a substance called P16INK4A that creates destruction in normal cells.  Research into anti-aging is looking for a way to fight these cells and slow the aging process, because they are prevalent in conditions such as arthritis, dementia, cataracts, and more.

There's also the zombie cells created from silica mentioned in the other blog post that "are more resilient, and outperform, living mammalian cells."  I truly believe that if (and when?) the zombie apocalypse happens, it is going to be because of science or stem cell research or something along those lines.  Something is going to happen in a lab that is then going to escape and slowly but surely infect all of society.  Stem cell research is bringing dead brain cells to life, allowing comatose patients to get up and walk around.  It is bringing dead tissue to life, and hypothetically could someday regenerate entire organs.  There is toxoplasmosa gondii, which is a toxin found in rats that causes mindlessness and leads the rats to allow themselves to be eaten by a cat in order to spread the toxin.  The scary part? Toxoplasmosa is the leading cause of food poisoning, and according to the CDC website, "More than 60 million men, women, and children in the U.S. carry the toxoplasma parasite, but very few have symptoms because the immune system usually keeps the parasite from causing illness."  Comforting, huh?

What do you guys think about science and its zombie connections?