I read her life story once and the only good thing she ever did was die.

Henrietta Lacks was born Loretta Lacks but no one remembers how her name got changed to Henrietta. When her mother later died in childbirth, she went to live with her grandfather and shared a room with her 9 year old cousin David Lacks who would later become her husband. Yup. She became pregnant by him and had her oldest son at 14. They eventually married and had several more children. One of them died quite young in an institution for the negro insane. Henrietta died of cancer at 31

She got cervical cancer because she contracted HPV/genital warts. Her cancer cells keep reproducing and never die because their telomeres are always renewed. A doctor preserved these cells without her knowlege for further study :

These cells proliferate abnormally rapidly, even compared to other cancer cells. Like many other cancer cells,[39] HeLa cells have an active version of telomerase during cell division,[40] which copies telomeres over and over again. This prevents the incremental shortening of telomeres that is implicated in aging and eventual cell death. In this way, the cells circumvent the Hayflick limit, which is the limited number of cell divisions that most normal cells can undergo before becoming senescent. The result is unlimited cell division and immortality.

The chromosomes in her cells line are highly abnormal and some dude declared her a new species

Horizontal gene transfer from human papillomavirus 18 (HPV18) to human cervical cells created the HeLa genome, which is different from Henrietta Lacks' genome in various ways, including its number of chromosomes. HeLa cells are rapidly dividing cancer cells, and the number of chromosomes varied during cancer formation and cell culture. The current estimate (excluding very tiny fragments) is a "hypertriploid chromosome number (3n+)" which means 76 to 80 total chromosomes (rather than the normal diploid number of 46) with 22–25 clonally abnormal chromosomes, known as "HeLa signature chromosomes."

....HeLa was described by Leigh Van Valen as an example of the contemporary creation of a new species, dubbed Helacyton gartleri, due to their ability to replicate indefinitely, and their non-human number of chromosomes. The species was named after Stanley M. Gartler, whom van Valen credits with discovering "the remarkable success of this species."[57] His argument for speciation depends on these points: *The chromosomal incompatibility of HeLa cells with humans. *The ecological niche of HeLa cells. *Their ability to persist and expand well beyond the desires of human cultivators. *HeLa can be defined as a species as it has its own clonal karyotype.[58]

The family now has some control over use of the cell line

To further resolve the issue of patient privacy, Johns Hopkins established a joint committee with the NIH and several of Lacks's family members to determine who receives access to Henrietta Lacks's genome. On August 7, 2013, NIH director Francis Collins announced a policy of controlled access to the cell line genome based on an agreement reached after three meetings with the Lacks family.

They gettin paid