Walter Nelson-Rees (January 11, 1929 – January 23, 2009) was a

cell culture Cell culture or tissue culture is the process by which cell (biology), cells are grown under controlled conditions, generally outside of their natural environment. After cells of interest have been Cell isolation, isolated from living tissue, ...

worker and

cytogeneticist Cytogenetics is essentially a branch of genetics, but is also a part of cell biology/cytology (a subdivision of human anatomy), that is concerned with how the chromosomes relate to cell behaviour, particularly to their behaviour during mitosis an ...

who helped expose the problem of cross-contamination of cell lines. He used

chromosome banding A karyotype is the general appearance of the complete set of chromosomes in the cells of a species or in an individual organism, mainly including their sizes, numbers, and shapes. Karyotyping is the process by which a karyotype is discerned by de ...

to show that many immortal cell lines, previously thought to be unique, were actually HeLa cell lines. The HeLa cells had contaminated and overgrown the other cell lines.

Biography

He was born on January 11, 1929 in

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Society for In Vitro Biology (SIVB)
He died on January 23, 2009, in

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, from complications from a broken hip.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nelson-Rees 1929 births 2009 deaths American cell biologists Cell biologists