Walter Nelson-Rees
Walter Nelson-Rees | |
|---|---|
Walter Nelson-Rees in 2005 | |
| Born | January 11, 1929 |
| Died | January 23, 2009 (aged 80) San Francisco, California |
| Citizenship | American |
| Known for | Showing that HeLa cells contaminated other cell lines |
| Awards | Lifetime Achievement Award Society for In Vitro Biology |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Cell culture, cytogenetics |
| Institutions | UC Berkeley |
Walter Nelson-Rees (January 11, 1929 – January 23, 2009) was a cell culture worker and cytogeneticist who helped expose the problem of cross-contamination of cell lines. He used chromosome banding 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.