So why would cancerous cells, that act abnormally to a normal healthy cell, be used in all these studies?
In: Biology
Well a lot of times Hela cells are just used as a useful cell for doing all sorts of experiments. For example I worked on HIV. We had a DNA genome for HIV (in a thing called a plasmid, basically a circle of DNA). I made a lot of mutations in the HIV virus which I would do in these bits of DNA. Note this DNA is not infectious. But after making my mutations I needed to make live HIV viruses to test the effects of those mutations (these mutations were done to learn about various functions for different parts of the HIV virus). We would take this HIV genome in the DNA, introduce it into Hela cells in tissue culture, and then the Hela cells would start making live HIV viruses. I could then take that virus and do whatever experiment I wanted to do. Hela cells for me were sort of like a work horse cell that grew well, stuck to the bottom of the plate and you could use it for this and other purposes. Kind of like a handy tool.
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