After a two-year legal battle, a district court will soon decide whether the descendants of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cervical cancer cells formed the basis for the famous HeLa cell line, can proceed with their lawsuit against Thermo Fisher Scientific. The plaintiffs contend that the company unjustly profited from the use of Lacks’ cells, but the defendants are arguing that the claim is outside that statute of limitations.
The outcome of the case may ultimately hang on what constitutes unjust enrichment from the use of living cells and...