The Case of the Invading Cell and 500,000 Garbage Articles
This essay was prompted by a belated obituary in The New York Times from July 4, 2026, titled: “Stanley M. Gartler, Pioneer in Cancer Research, Dies at 102.” Gartler actually died earlier, on May 25, 2026, at his home in Seattle, but his death “was not widely reported at the time.”
Stanley M. Gartler in a photograph taken around 1960
Introduction
This essay deals mainly with a subject that has been dear to me throughout my life: the integrity—or, too often, the lack thereof—of the scientific literature. In addition, I shall discuss HeLa cells, the biological definition of species, the vanity of scientists, and the ubiquity of “ghost articles”—unretracted publications that perpetuate flawed data.
Sydney Brenner once drew a useful distinction between “junk DNA” and “garbage DNA.” Both junk and garbage DNA are part of the genome that is nonfunctional, which Brenner called “rubbish DNA.” But while junk DNA is useless and harmless, garbage DNA is useless and harmful, i.e., it interferes with the proper functioning of the organism.
Brenner's distinction extends surprisingly well beyond DNA. The scientific literature, like the genome, contains both harmless clutter and actively harmful elements. The difference between them is not whether they are false, but whether they interfere with the proper functioning of the system.
Scientific articles come in three broad categories. First are genuine articles—papers based on authentic observations, reliable data, and sound analyses. These are the foundation upon which scientific knowledge advances. Second are junk articles—papers based on erroneous, fabricated, or otherwise unreliable data, flawed analyses, or questionable methodology that attract little attention, are rarely cited, and have little influence on subsequent research. Like junk DNA, they occupy space in the scientific record but cause relatively little harm.
Finally, there are garbage articles. These, too, may be based on false or fraudulent data, but unlike junk articles they become highly influential. They are widely cited, incorporated into reviews, textbooks, grant proposals, and clinical or experimental practice, misleading generations of researchers and diverting valuable time, effort, and money. Garbage articles do not have to be the result of intentional deception. The vast majority are written by ordinary scientists who are reluctant to admit errors or lapses in logic and are too lazy or conceited to admit that their work was useless. Like garbage DNA, garbage articles actively impair the functioning of the scientific enterprise. Their effects persist long after the original errors are recognized, because they continue to generate what might be called garbage citations—citations that perpetuate falsehoods and contaminate the scientific literature.
HeLa Cells
Our story starts with HeLa cells—one of only a handful of human cell lines that proved to be immortal and could be propagated indefinitely in the laboratory. The HeLa cell line was established in February 1951 at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, by George Otto Gey and his team from a biopsy of a cervical tumor. The name HeLa is derived from the first two letters of the first and last names of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951 in the Colored Gynecology Ward of the hospital. The cells were taken from her without her knowledge or informed consent and were subsequently distributed or sold to hundreds of laboratories around the world. The HeLa line would contribute to major advancements in vaccine development, cancer research, cell biology, in vitro fertilization, cloning, and chemotherapy.
In 2022, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimated that HeLa cells have been directly used in more than 110,000 scientific publications. The cell line is also featured in more than 17,000 global patents. Finally, at least three Nobel Prize-winning breakthroughs relied entirely on HeLa cells: Harald zur Hausen in 2008 for the discovery that human papillomavirus (HPV) causes cervical cancer, Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider, and Jack Szostak in 2009 for the discovery of the mechanism through which chromosomes are protected by telomeres and telomerase, and Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell, and William Moerner in 2014 for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy.
Why did HeLa research scale up so quickly? The main reason was that HeLa cell numbers naturally double every 20 to 24 hours, so they could be continuously produced on an industrial scale.
Who was He… La…?
The term HeLa first appears in the literature in 1953, but no etymological explanation was provided for the name at the time.
George Otto Gey kept Henrietta Lacks’ identity secret for the rest of his life, never replying to inquiries on the identity of the cell donor. He died from pancreatic cancer on November 8, 1970. In his will he donated his cancer tissue to research, but his cells could not be cultured. Karma is a bitch.
In 1971, a poem dedicated to the woman from which HeLa cells were presumably taken was published. The "poet" was Nancy Lee Caroline, physician, humanitarian, and writer best known as the “Mother of Paramedics,” who revolutionized emergency medical services in the United States by developing the first national curriculum for paramedic training and writing the classic textbook Emergency Care in the Streets. The title of her poem was To Helen Larson.
"Death was the last of God's creations, And then He rested. The ameba passed it by, uninterested: To multiply was to divide And never die. And never Be molested. Those who came in pairs, however, Found they could not live forever And gave a sigh in procreation. To multiply Meant be divested of the flesh; Only germ cells might slip by Unto the endless generation To start afresh. For God had said, "It is not good That Death Should be alone. I will make a help-meet for him." And God created sex Before He rested. Thenceforth the Law of spawn and die: To all who might in love Unite their breath Came death. Man, it seemed, was not exempted, Nor woman either, though they were tempted To cajole immortal secrets. But despite their favored role The Law preempted favor. So it stood: To the body sex and death. Immortality to germ cell, and soul. And God thought that was good. Science was the first of man's creations, And then he fell. But never after did he dwell On failure. The Law Was nothing to him. He foresaw in test tubes abrogation of the Law, Resurrection of the dead. Then Helen Larson wed. Her groom Was cancer. Soon she felt Death stirring deep within her womb. She never tried to be immortal. She died Respectably, but in her dying Quite untied the knot of sex and death. Her breath ceased In the tomb, Unmindful that her womb persisted separately. To multiply is to divide, Spawning immortality."
The poem carried a footnote: “Helen Larson was the source of the first human cell line to be propagated in vitro.”
In 1973, two years after Gey's death, a short letter by John Douglas, Lecturer in Microbiology and Virology in the Department of Applied Biology at Brunel University, appeared in Nature.
"It is twenty-one years since George Gey established the famous HeLa cells in culture. It has been estimated that the weight of these cells in the world today exceeds that of the American negro from whose cervical tumor they originated. That lady has achieved true immortality, both in the test-tube and in the hearts and minds of scientists the world over, since the value of HeLa cells in research, diagnosis, etc., is inestimable. Yet we do not know her name!
It has been widely stated that He and La are the first letters of her names but whereas one textbook says the names were Helen Lane another says Henrietta Lacks.
My letters to the authors, inquiring the source of their information, like the letter to the hospital from which Gey's paper emanated, remain unanswered. Does anyone know for sure? Would it be contrary to medical ethics in the HeLa cell’s coming-of-age year to authenticate the name and let He… La… enjoy the fame she so richly deserves?"
This is the first time name Henrietta Lacks appears in writing together with the fictitious Helen Lane.
Only in 1974, has the name Henrietta Lacks been authenticated beyond all doubt.
If one is interested in the sordid origin story of HeLa cells and their legacy, I highly recommend The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot—one of the finest works of nonfiction ever written on any subject. It masterfully chronicles Lacks’ life, the scientific legacy of her cells, and the ethical questions surrounding their use in biomedical research.
Stanley Gartler Discovers a Shocking Fact
Most scientists are remembered for positive discoveries that revealed the existence of something new—a gene, a chromosome, a biochemical pathway, or a disease mechanism. Stanley Gartler made many such positive contributions. He was a pioneer in human genetics, demonstrating the power of genetic markers in cultured cells and advancing our understanding of random X-chromosome inactivation in females, the clonal origin of cancer, and human chimerism.
His most famous contribution, however, was not the discovery of something that existed, but the demonstration that something everyone believed to exist did not.
In the mid-1960s, researchers thought they had established dozens of independent human cell lines from different tissues and tumors. In 1965, while studying genetic markers that vary among human populations by using permanent human cell lines—cultures used in laboratory research that are stable and easily propagated, Gartler noticed something remarkable. In 18 supposedly independent cultures, the genetic variants of the enzymes glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) and phosphoglucomutase (PGM) were identical among the cell lines. Moreover, they all expressed the rare A variant of the G6PD gene, which is found almost exclusively in Blacks. Yet many of these cell lines were reported to have originated from tumors of White patients.
It became clear to him that these purportedly unique cell cultures had been contaminated. This was evidence of a pervasive problem of a human cell line that could contaminate other cultures through dust particles, reused lab coats or unwashed hands. Eventually, he determined that all these cultures had been overtaken by cells from a single source: the extraordinarily vigorous HeLa cell line. Because HeLa cells grow rapidly and survive routine laboratory handling, even a small accidental contamination could eventually replace the original cells in a culture.
Researchers who believed they were studying cancers of the kidney, liver, or breast, likely studied the cellular descendants of Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cancer. This was a profoundly negative discovery with enormous implications. Hundreds of published studies had to be reinterpreted, and researchers had to confront the possibility that much of their work—sometimes their life’s work—was not what they claimed to be.
At a 1966 conference in Bedford, Pennsylvania on cell tissue and organ culture, Dr. Gartler presented his findings. He told a stunned audience of 700 scientists that their work on what they believed to be original cell lines was now “open to serious questions” and he suggested that all this work “best be discarded.” Most researchers didn’t particularly want to hear that news. His findings implied that countless hours and untold millions of dollars had been spent on invalid science.
Gartler’s work was published in Nature in 1968 under the title "Apparent HeLa Cell Contamination of Human Heteroploid Cell Lines."
In an ideal world, Gartler's work would have transformed scientific practice. It would have led to routine authentication of cell lines, the establishment of curated cell repositories, and, eventually, the widespread adoption of DNA-based methods for verifying cell identity. Alas, this was not to be. Contaminated cell cultures continue to be misrepresented in the literature to this day, leading astray second, third, and fourth-generation researchers.
If there is one truth about science, it is that scientists are human, possessing of enormous egos and reluctant to admit error. So, although scientists preach that science advances through Popperian falsification, few like to find themselves on the falsified side of the equation.
Walter Nelson-Rees: From Cytogeneticist to "Self-Appointed Vigilante" to Gallerist
A few years after Stanley Gartler's discovery of widespread HeLa contamination, cytogeneticist Walter Nelson-Rees took up the cause. Working at the Cell Culture Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley, in Oakland, where he characterized, stored, and distributed cell lines for the U.S. National Cancer Institute, Nelson-Rees began systematically identifying contaminated cell lines from laboratories around the world.
Over more than a decade, he documented 279 contaminated cell lines originating from 45 laboratories. Many had been contaminated by cells from other species, but most had been completely overrun by HeLa cells. Throughout the 1970s, Nelson-Rees published a series of papers in Science urging researchers to stop using contaminated cell lines, re-evaluate previous findings based on them, and adopt simple quality-control procedures, such as routinely verifying the authenticity of their cell cultures.
His revelations threw the biomedical community into turmoil. Entire bodies of research were suddenly called into question, and, unlike Gartler, Nelson-Rees publicly identified the laboratories responsible for the contaminated cell lines. Not surprisingly, many researchers reacted with hostility. In a 1981 editorial, Nature, under its cowardly dictator-in-chief, John Maddox, hiding behind the anonymity of the Editorial Board, denounced Nelson-Rees—without mentioning him by name—warning that “it would be tragic if the civilized habits of trust in research were to be corrupted by the activities of self-appointed vigilantes.”
Stephen O'Brien, who had worked with Nelson-Rees at the time, later recalled the atmosphere: "Human emotions were on edge, red faces were appearing in the most prestigious laboratories, and discussions of the problem lost any semblance of civility." Nelson-Rees himself remembered receiving an anonymous telegram offering to buy him a one-way ticket to South Africa.
The attacks eventually took their toll. In 1981, Nelson-Rees left science and opened an art gallery in San Francisco. Sadly, in October 1991, the Oakland firestorm destroyed Nelson-Rees's extensive collection of California art, then valued at approximately $45 million. About 800 paintings were lost, none of which were insured.
Recognition came only much later for Nelson-Rees. In 2004, the Society for In Vitro Biology honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. The accompanying press release noted succinctly: "Unfortunately, Walter Nelson-Rees retired at the height of his renown after publishing nearly 70 full-length, peer-reviewed articles."
A personal note: When my colleagues and I published a paper demonstrating that much of the carefully choreographed excitement surrounding the ENCODE Project rested on wishful thinking, faulty logic, a profound misunderstanding of evolutionary biology, and the waste of millions of dollars, Science published a commentary about me entitled "The Vigilante." I have always regarded that description as one of the finest compliments I have ever received.
HeLa Continues to Spread (Mostly in Disguise)
A 2007 news article in Science provided many examples of contamination by HeLa and other cells. The general picture looks like a case of Murphy’s law on steroids: “Everything that can go wrong will always go very, very wrong." When the experiments are done of imposter cells, and when possible treatments are tested on imposter cells, millions of dollars and human resources are wasted. Charles Patrick Reynolds of the University of Southern California stated that journals would have to retract 35% to 40% of their previously published cell biology papers to weed out invalid data. Fat chance that this will happen given that under the conceptual disaster called Open Access, in which journals make as much money out publishing garbage as out of publishing genuine science.
Ghost Articles and Ghost Citations
A 2017 paper entitled “The Ghosts of HeLa: How Cell Line Misidentification Contaminates the Scientific Literature” examined one of the most persistent problems in biomedical research: the continued use of misidentified human cell lines, most of which are actually HeLa or descendants of HeLa-contaminated cultures.
The numbers were horrifying:
There were 451 human cell lines known to be misidentified.
By the first half of 2017, these cell lines had been used in 32,755 primary research papers.
More than 92% of the papers are cited at least once.
Excluding self-citations, these 32,755 papers are cited in excess of 500,000 times.
Most contaminated papers were published since the year 2000, close to half a century since the contamination of human cell cultures was recognized.
The authors made four main points: (1) The problem began with HeLa contamination, (2) The contamination problem has never gone away. Despite authentication techniques being cheap and available, hundreds of cell lines remain known to be misidentified or cross-contaminated. Hundreds of cell lines are listed in public databases as “problematic,” yet many of them continue to be used as if they represented their originally reported tissues. (3) The scientific literature is contaminated. (4) The problem is largely invisible because papers that use misidentified cell lines never mention that their cell cultures are contaminated.
Their conclusion was that cell line misidentification is not a historical curiosity but an ongoing threat to the reliability of biomedical research. Decades after Gartler's discovery, the "ghosts of HeLa" continue to haunt the scientific literature because thousands of studies have been performed on mislabeled cells, and their conclusions continue to be cited.
Is HeLa a Species?
In 1991, Leigh Van Valen and Virginia Maiorana published a paper entitled "HeLa, a New Microbial Species." The species was named Helacyton gartleri. The genus Helacyton combines HeLa in honor of Henrietta Lacks and cyton for cell. The species name is an eponym honoring Stanley Gartler, who announced in 1968 that supposedly independent human cell lines in hundreds of laboratories had been overtaken by HeLa cells.
Van Valen and Maiorana argument for defining this species rested on several points:
HeLa cells are genetically incompatible with humans.
Their chromosome number is typically about 70–80 chromosomes rather than the normal human 46.
Their genome has been extensively rearranged and differs so profoundly from that of any normal human cell that they can no longer be considered ordinary human cells.
They possess a stable, distinctive clonal genome.
Despite ongoing mutations, they share karyotype characteristics that distinguish them from both normal human cells and other cell lines.
They occupy a unique ecological niche, which is fundamentally different from that of Homo sapiens.
They reproduce independently and indefinitely outside the human body and have persisted for decades without depending on the survival of Henrietta Lacks or any other human host.
They have become successful colonizers, spreading from laboratory to laboratory by contaminating other cell cultures. Their ability to invade and replace other cultured human cells resembled the ecological success of an invasive microorganism.
They behave evolutionarily as an independent lineage. HeLa cells had escaped from the evolutionary trajectory of humans and were now evolving separately under selection that is different from that exerted on humans.
Van Valen and Maiorana’s proposal attracted considerable attention but has not been accepted by most evolutionary biologists. To the best of my knowledge most arguments raised by critics are invalid and can be easily disproved by counterexamples from recognized species that have raised no objection. Intriguingly, no one published a formal scientific refutation of Helacyton gartleri.
The strongest objection to Helacyton gartleri has been its origin. Plasmodium falciparum, for instance, descends from a long evolutionary lineage of Plasmodium-like organisms. HeLa descends from a somatic cell of a human, which doesn't even resemble Helacyton gartleri. Critics argued that this makes HeLa a part of an organism rather than a descendant organism. This distinction is debatable. Once the original cancer cells escaped Henrietta Lacks's body in 1951, they became a self-perpetuating lineage with their own evolutionary trajectory. From an evolutionary perspective, one can argue that they ceased to be merely human tissue and became an autonomous lineage.
Indeed, many philosophers of biology have noted that if one adopts a strict evolutionary-lineage concept of species, the usual objections to HeLa become surprisingly difficult to defend consistently. That is precisely why the proposal of Helacyton gartleri continues to be discussed decades after it was published.
Genomic characterization of HeLa cells
Two landmark papers published independently in 2013 produced the first complete genomic characterizations of HeLa cells. As the figure below shows, the HeLa genome still bears some resemblance to the human genome, but it is far less similar to it than chimpanzee and gorilla genomes are.
Karyotype of the HeLa cells assessed by multicolour fluorescence in situ hybridization (M-FISH).
While the principal chromosomal difference between humans and the two African apes is that humans have 46 chromosomes, whereas chimpanzees and gorillas have 48, due to the fusion of two ancestral ape chromosomes in the human lineage, producing human chromosome 2, HeLa cells with their 70–90 chromosomes are hypertriploid, that is, they have a larger number of chromosomes than the expected triploid number (69), but lower than a tetraploid (92).
Every human chromosome is either overrepresented or underrepresented in Hela. The HeLa genome also contains massive structural rearrangements, including reciprocal translocations, Robertsonian translocations, deletions, duplications, inversions, isochromosomes, i.e., chromosomes in which one arm is missing and the other arm is duplicated in mirror-image form, ring chromosomes, dicentric chromosomes, i.e., chromosomes with two centromeres, and so-called marker chromosomes, whose origin is difficult to identify by banding methodology. One such marker chromosome in HeLa contains material from human chromosomes 3, 5, 8, and 11.
An important thing to note is that there is no such thing as a typical HeLa karyotype—the different HeLa cell lines may differ from one another to a lesser or greater extent. In particular, chromosome number is highly unstable and continuously evolving.
All HeLa cell lines contain signs of a human papillomavirus (HPV) type-18 integration into chromosome 8. This event which in all probability was the cause of Henrietta Lacks’ cancer, is unique to HeLa and is absent from normal human cells. (Tell that to the asinine MAHA supporters who object to HPV vaccination because it causes autism and promiscuity.)