George Otto Gey

George Otto Gey /ɡaɪ/ (July 6, 1899 – November 8, 1970) was the scientist who propagated the HeLa cell line.

Biography

Gey (pronounced "Guy") was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 6,1899 to Frank and Emma Gey, immigrants from Germany. By the 1910 United States Census he was living at 512 Frayne Street, located near the borders of Greenfield and Hazelwood, with his parents and two siblings, older brother, Frank and younger sister, Henrietta. Gey attended Peabody High School. In 1921 He received his undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Pittsburgh, he also taught zoology there. Around 1926 he married Margaret K. (1900–1989), who was from Wisconsin. By 1930 they were living on Saint Paul Street in Baltimore, and in the 1950s they started the Tissue Culture Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. Using a sample from the cervix of Henrietta Lacks provided by Howard W. Jones, he propagated her cells into an immortalized human cell line. Gey died from pancreatic cancer on November 8, 1970 in Baltimore, Maryland.