Suricata_906 t1_iw53p66 wrote
Reply to comment by scrangos in How do medical researchers obtain lab animals with diseases like specific forms of cancer which arise spontaneously? Do they raise thousands of apes and hope some eventually develop the disease? by userbrn1
No track record as far as I know, but everyone assumes they are not as originally isolated. HeLa cells still have the original HPV induced mutations but unspecified other ones. When was a lab worker, the protocol was to use cells like that for maybe 15-20 population doublings, then discontinue.
The ATCC (American Type Culture Collection) is the motherlode for all kinds of cells, from the fairly normal, to things like HeLa that I like to say would grow on walls!
Fun fact. Most cells cultures isolated from normal human tissues have an expiration date called the Hayflick Limit of 50 or so population doublings before they become senescent and won’t divide. immortalizing mutations of various kinds override that.
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