Woman's cells keep on fighting cancer

DETROIT, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- A Michigan bus driver's cells are being used to fight breast cancer decades after they were taken from her.

"It's the weirdest feeling," Sue Cutting of Northville told the Detroit Free Press. "My son called one day and said, 'Mom, I'm watching your cells on YouTube.'"

In 1984, a Michigan Cancer Foundation scientist put a scraping of her non-malignant breast cells, taken during surgery for fibrocystic disease, into a standard culture solution. While most cells divide a few dozen times and die, Cutting's began reproducing without stopping or mutating.

The Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit patented the tissue, known worldwide as MCF-10. As the first known non-cancerous human epithelial breast cell line to spontaneously reproduce, it offers an endless supply of tissue that can be studied to trace the progression of breast cancer.

Cutting gave away control of it when she signed a consent form in 1988 for its research use.

She is glad to help fight cancer, which claimed her mother and other relatives, but said, "It's a very strange feeling to have your DNA on the Internet and you're not involved with it in any way, shape or form."