George Otto Gey Impact On Society

916 Words2 Pages

George Otto Gey has had major impacts in the biological community. He has accomplished a lot within his lifetime. The world would not be the same without the accomplishments from George Otto Gey. George Otto Gey was born in 1899 on February 7th. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania(“George Gey”). Gey died on November 8th, 1970. He died in Baltimore, Maryland due to pancreatic cancer (“George Gey”). George Gey received his B.S from the University of Pittsburgh and his M.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine(The George O. Collection). Gey first got an interest in cancer, which is what got him started in the biology/medical field. Cancer at the time was incurable and basically meant certain death. Gey made it a personal goal …show more content…

Jonas Salk, Julius Youngner, and their colleagues used the roller tube while to create a creation of the polio vaccine (By 1950). Howard Walter Florey was a pathologist and cofounded penicillin in his lifetime from 1898-1968 (Fromm). Ernest Orlando Lawrence was awarded a Nobel Prize for creating the cyclotron, which is also known as the atom smasher. Frederick Sanger is known for his work on the different structures of protein and his work regarding …show more content…

Many people kept up his work after he died. Specifically, people kept researching and working on the HeLa cell line for about 35 years after Gey died (“George Gey”). People have used HeLa cells to test diseases that affect humans, because HeLa cells were similar enough to normal cells. HeLa cells are studied all over the world; there almost 11,000 patents on HeLa cell (Stump). HeLa cells were the only human cells to be able to live outside the boy. HeLa cells also allowed scientists to be able to test and create vaccinations for diseases (Stump). HeLa cells have helped with created treatments for herpes, influenza, and some other illnesses. These cells also allowed researchers to test how cells react under zero gravity, intense heat, and radiation

Open Document