Helacyton gartleri

John Ings said:

In 1991 Leigh Van Valen and V.C. Maiorana published a
paper [Evolutionary Theory 10: 71-74] arguing that the
human cancer cell known as the Hela cell, having bred true
in labs all over the world for nearly half a century,
deserved to be named a new species and proposed the name
Helacyton gartleri.

So I was wondering what sort of reception this argument
has received in the years since. Has it been accepted?
Rejected? Or does it simply languish as a taxonomic
paradox?

And has the Hela cell itself mutated into sub species or
varieties?

It could not have been half a century - Henrietta Lacks,
whose cells these were, was biopsied in the 60s.

I like HeLa, because by phylogenetic rules of some extreme
Hennigians, it means that we should drop the name _Homo
sapiens_ as extinct, and rename the branch that did not
become unicellular... [censored] acanceri?
--
John Wilkins [email hidden]
wilkins.id.auwilkins.id.auOpen ↗ "Men mark it when they hit, but do
not mark it when they miss"
- Francis
Bacon

In article <[email hidden]>,

John Ings said:

In 1991 Leigh Van Valen and V.C. Maiorana published a paper
[Evolutionary Theory 10: 71-74] arguing that the human
cancer cell known as the Hela cell, having bred true in
labs all over the world for nearly half a century, deserved
to be named a new species and proposed the name Helacyton
gartleri.

I hadn't been aware of this. The species designation has not
been taken up by others.

What amuses me is that Stan Gartler is a member of my
department, and I talked with him just the other day. I had
no idea his name had been proposed for the species name for
HeLa cells! Stan was the person who found that many
supposedly distinct cell lines from various labs had all
been contaminated and taken over by HeLa cells.

--
Joe Felsenstein [email hidden]
Department of Genome Sciences and Department of
Biology, University of Washington, Box 357730, Seattle,
WA 98195-7730 USA

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 23:03:04 +0000 (UTC), [email hidden] (John

Wilkins) said:

t could not have been half a century - Henrietta Lacks,
whose cells these were, was biopsied in the 60s.

9 Feb 1951

See: jhu.edu01.htmlOpen ↗

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 23:03:04 +0000 (UTC),

John Wilkins said:

John Ings said:

In 1991 Leigh Van Valen and V.C. Maiorana published a
paper [Evolutionary Theory 10: 71-74] arguing that the
human cancer cell known as the Hela cell, having bred
true in labs all over the world for nearly half a
century, deserved to be named a new species and proposed
the name Helacyton gartleri.

So I was wondering what sort of reception this argument
has received in the years since. Has it been accepted?
Rejected? Or does it simply languish as a taxonomic
paradox?

And has the Hela cell itself mutated into sub species or
varieties?

It could not have been half a century - Henrietta Lacks,
whose cells these were, was biopsied in the 60s.

February 1, 1951.

Larry (who doesn't really remember 1951) Moran

In article <[email hidden]>,

(Larry Moran) said:

John Wilkins said:

John Ings said:

In 1991 Leigh Van Valen and V.C. Maiorana published a
paper [Evolutionary Theory 10: 71-74] arguing that the
human cancer cell known as the Hela cell, having bred
true in labs all over the world for nearly half a
century, deserved to be named a new species and
proposed the name Helacyton gartleri.

So I was wondering what sort of reception this argument
has received in the years since. Has it been accepted?
Rejected? Or does it simply languish as a taxonomic
paradox?

And has the Hela cell itself mutated into sub species
or varieties?

It could not have been half a century - Henrietta Lacks,
whose cells these were, was biopsied in the 60s.

February 1, 1951.

Thanks for the correction.

Quoted message said:

Larry (who doesn't really remember 1951) Moran

I don't remember 1991...

--
John Wilkins [email hidden] www.wilkins.id.au It is
not enough to succeed. Friends must be seen to have failed.
Truman Capote