Ah, HeLa cells... everytime I see the name now I think of Rebecca Skloot's newly released book on the subject. The treatment of Henrietta Lacks was unfair at best... Anyone who reads Skloot's book has to agree that Lacks was wronged. It may not be any consolation, but her legacy has become life-giving and has borne many innovations. Here is yet another cool little bit of research that use the HeLa cell line.

This article—published last week online in Biomicrofluidics—details the use of a microfluidic device that is used to observe, in real time, the death of the HeLa cancer cells.The platform uses a stepwise concentration gradient of drugs.

The authors conclude that:

This microfluidic platform can provide several advantages:

1. Cytotoxicity of drugs at multiple concentrations can be simultaneously studied in parallel on one chip, thus saving time and labor and reducing systematic errors
2. The sample size can be largely reduced
3. Microfluidic chambers facilitate long-time tracking of individual cells, and
4. microscopic imaging can give higher optical sensitivity than fluorescent scanner or UV-visible absorption.

...This prototypic system should be useful in the areas of biology and bioengineering, especially for discovering apoptosis-inducing agents as potential anticancer drug candidates.