Recognition of Research Participants’ Need for Autonomy

August 1, 2020, marked what would have been the 100th birthday of Henrietta Lacks, the Black woman whose cervical cancer cells gave rise to the immortal HeLa cell line.HeLa cells have played an extraordinary role in scientific research, underlying multiple Nobel Prize-winning discoveries and enabling medical advances for polio, cancer, Ebola virus disease, sickle cell disease, and countless other conditions.However, the bright biomedical legacy of HeLa cells is tarnished by the injustice of this biospecimen being preserved without the consent of Lacks or her family, whose identity was revealed decades ago. 1 This failure, while permitted by the ethical norms of the time, has affected the Lacks family in profound ways, including limiting the comfort, pride, and satisfaction that comes with knowing a deceased loved one made an important contribution to science.Today's current events provide an opportune time to reflect on the experiences of Lacks and other African Americans in the context of biomedical research, and to look ahead to what can be done to make that future far more just and equitable.In the wake of the killing of George Floyd and other similar events, the US may have reached an inflection point in challenging systemic racism and a long history of injustices against Black individuals.