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virus
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
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essentially reprogramming the cell so it reproduces the virus instead of itself.
Chpt 2.13 *

virus = a tiny organism that causes disease
If it didn't work, the virus would infect the cells, causing damage scientists could see using a microscope.†
Chpt 2.13
Within days they found that HeLa was, in fact, more susceptible to the virus than any cultured cells had ever been.†
Chpt 2.13
When the NFIP heard the news that HeLa was susceptible to polio virus and could grow in large quantities for little money, it immediately contracted William Scherer to oversee development of a HeLa Distribution Center at the Tuskegee Institute, one of the most prestigious black universities in the country.†
Chpt 2.13
They did that because, despite being cancerous, HeLa still shared many basic characteristics with normal cells: They produced proteins and communicated with one another like normal cells, they divided and generated energy, they expressed genes and regulated them, and they were susceptible to infections, which made them an optimal tool for synthesizing and studying any number of things in culture, including bacteria, hormones, proteins, and especially viruses.†
Chpt 2.13
Viruses reproduce by injecting bits of their genetic material into a living cell, essentially reprogramming the cell so it reproduces the virus instead of itself.†
Chpt 2.13
When it came to growing viruses—as with many other things—the fact that HeLa was malignant just made it more useful.†
Chpt 2.13
In the early fifties, scientists were just beginning to understand viruses, so as Henrietta's cells arrived in labs around the country, researchers began exposing them to viruses of all kinds—herpes, measles, mumps, fowl pox, equine encephalitis—to study how each one entered cells, reproduced, and spread.†
Chpt 2.13
In the early fifties, scientists were just beginning to understand viruses, so as Henrietta's cells arrived in labs around the country, researchers began exposing them to viruses of all kinds—herpes, measles, mumps, fowl pox, equine encephalitis—to study how each one entered cells, reproduced, and spread.†
Chpt 2.13
One had used them to grow a vaccine for a common-cold-like virus, which he'd injected—along with bits of HeLa—into more than four hundred people.†
Chpt 2.17
"There is the possible danger," Southam wrote, "of initiating neo-plastic disease by accidental inoculation during laboratory investigation, or by injection with such cells or cell products if they should be used for production of virus vaccine."†
Chpt 2.17
He and many other scientists believed that cancer was caused by either a virus or an immune system deficiency, so Southam decided to use HeLa to test those theories.†
Chpt 2.17
He published a paper suggesting that perhaps "transformed" cells behaved the same not because they'd become cancerous, but because they'd been contaminated by something—most likely a virus or bacterium—that made them behave similarly.†
Chpt 2.18
Their mission was to establish a nonprofit federal cell bank at the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), which had been distributing and monitoring the purity of bacteria, fungi, yeast, and viruses since 1925, but never cultured cells.†
Chpt 2.18
Initially the committee could only test samples for viral and bacterial contamination, but soon a few of its members developed a test for cross-species contamination, so they could determine whether cultures labeled as being from one animal type were actually from another.†
Chpt 2.18
In 1960, French researchers had discovered that when cells were infected with certain viruses in culture, they clumped together and sometimes fused.†
Chpt 2.18
Scientists knew they had to keep their cultures free from bacterial and viral contamination, and they knew it was possible for cells to contaminate one another if they got mixed up in culture.†
Chpt 2.20
At that point, the ATCC's collection had grown to dozens of different types of cells, all guaranteed to be free from viral and bacterial contamination, and tested to ensure that they hadn't been contaminated with cells from another species.†
Chpt 2.20
Researchers raced to find what they believed to be the elusive cancer virus, with hopes of developing a vaccine to prevent it.†
Chpt 2.22
And in May 1972, Nixon pledged that American and Russian scientists would work together in a biomedical exchange program to find the virus.†
Chpt 2.22
Near the end of 1972, when Russian scientists claimed they'd found a cancer virus in cells from Russian cancer patients, the U.S. government had samples of the cells hand-delivered to the Naval Biomedical Research Laboratory in California for testing.†
Chpt 2.22
When she found out scientists had been using HeLa cells to study viruses like AIDS and Ebola, Deborah imagined her mother eternally suffering the symptoms of each disease: bone-crushing pain, bleeding eyes, suffocation.†
Chpt 3.24
They also carried a rare virus called HTLV, a distant cousin of the HIV virus, which researchers hoped to use to create a vaccine that could stop the AIDS epidemic.†
Chpt 3.25
They also carried a rare virus called HTLV, a distant cousin of the HIV virus, which researchers hoped to use to create a vaccine that could stop the AIDS epidemic.†
Chpt 3.25
Because of that, he'd been exposed to the hepatitis B virus again and again, though he didn't find out until decades later, when a blood test showed extremely high concentrations of hepatitis B antibodies in his blood.†
Chpt 3.25
In 1984 a German virologist named Harald zur Hausen discovered a new strain of a sexually transmitted virus called Human Papilloma Virus 18 (HPV-18).†
Chpt 3.27
In 1984 a German virologist named Harald zur Hausen discovered a new strain of a sexually transmitted virus called Human Papilloma Virus 18 (HPV-18).†
Chpt 3.27
HeLa cells in his lab tested positive for the HPV-18 strain, but zur Hausen requested a sample of Henrietta's original biopsy from Hopkins, so he could be sure her cells hadn't been contaminated with the virus in culture.†
Chpt 3.27
The sample didn't just test positive; it showed that Henrietta had been infected with multiple copies of HPV-18, which turned out to be one of the most virulent strains of the virus.†
Chpt 3.27
Today it's possible for scientists to immortalize cells by exposing them to certain viruses or chemicals, but very few cells have become immortal on their own as Henrietta's did.†
Chpt 3.27
This allowed scientists to determine what was required for HIV to infect a cell—an important step toward understanding the virus, and potentially stopping it.†
Chpt 3.27
Once Axel infected HeLa cells with HIV, Rifkin said, they could infect other cells and expose lab researchers around the world to HIV, "thus increasing the virus' host range and potentially leading to the further hazardous dissemination of the AIDS virus genome."†
Chpt 3.27
Once Axel infected HeLa cells with HIV, Rifkin said, they could infect other cells and expose lab researchers around the world to HIV, "thus increasing the virus' host range and potentially leading to the further hazardous dissemination of the AIDS virus genome."†
Chpt 3.27
Only cells that had been transformed by a virus or a genetic mutation had the potential to become immortal.†
Chpt 3.27
But in your mother's case, the mistake was caused by HPV, the genital warts virus.†
Chpt 3.32
The good news for you is that children don't inherit those kinds of changes in DNA from their parents—they just come from being exposed to the virus.†
Chpt 3.32
Can you believe they even gave her that AID virus and injected her into monkeys?†
Chpt 3.35
They put cells in culture dishes and expose them to radiation, drugs, cosmetics, viruses, household chemicals, and biological weapons, and then study their responses.†
Chpt Aft.
In the 1990s, scientists used stored tissue samples from a soldier who died in 1918 to re-create the virus's genome and study why it was so deadly, with hopes of uncovering information about the current avian flu.†
Chpt Aft.

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Definitions:

(1) (virus as in: Covid 19 virus)
a tiny infectious agent that causes disease by invading living cells and using them to make more copies of itself

Although viruses contain genetic material, they can only reproduce by hijacking the reproductive machinery of a cell they invade.
(2) (virus as in: computer virus)
a type of software that spreads without invitation between computers and causes damage to data and software

Computer viruses are so-named because like a biological virus, they contain instructions on how to reproduce, but require the infected computer to actually execute the instructions.
(3) (viral as in: it went viral)
spreading rapidly and widely -- especially through the internet or social media
(4) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)

virus in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Auto-generated)

virus
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
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