Gey immorally and perhaps illegally reproduced the HeLa cells and sent them to research facilities all over the world. Through these procedures, the Gey lab received quite a bit of money from the other facilities (Brown 1983,-page 416)
The spouse of the deceased initially refused the autopsy feeling that dissection of the body would be disrespectful to his loved ones. However, the Gey lab persisted and explained to Lacks' husband that the cells were important to research (Gold 1986)
Cells from her body were taken after they were found to be mutagenic. The woman herself was never made aware that her cells had been collected and her next of kin was not made aware of the fact until decades after her passing (Landecker 2000,-page 55)
When the medical staff came to this realization they became excited about all the potential medical possibilities that the existence of immortal cells provided. The Gey lab, a medical facility functioning within the United States at the time of Lacks' illness, were highly interested in researching immortal cells and wanted to use Lacks' body after her death to further their research (Skloot 2011,-page 90)
In those cells the researchers at the hospital found something quite unexpected and unique. Lacks was one of an extremely rare type of person who produced what scientists came to refer to as "immortal cells" (Zielinski 2010,-page 1)