Relating to this bit :
Quote:
Twenty-five years after Henrietta died, a scientist discovered that many cell cultures thought to be from other tissue types, including breast and prostate cells, were in fact HeLa cells. It turned out that HeLa cells could float on dust particles in the air and travel on unwashed hands and contaminate other cultures. It became an enormous controversy.
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from Bruce's link, I've read elsewhere that not only can the cells drift around a laboratory surprisingly easily, if one does settle into any other culture, the HeLa will take over as fast as it can grow and divide, and then spread on, so for a while there was a big problem with laboratories not being sure if any of their cultures were what they thought they were. Some speculate that this invasiveness (as well as its immortality) is related to it being a cancer.