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Stanley M. Gartler, Pioneer in Cancer Research, Dies at 102
The New York Times • • general
Key Points:
- Stanley M. Gartler, a molecular biologist and geneticist known for proving that cancerous tumors develop from a single mutated cell, died at age 102 in Seattle.
- Gartler also exposed significant research errors related to the first permanent human cell line grown in the lab, known as HeLa cells.
- In the early 1960s, Gartler studied benign uterine fibroid tumors in Black women, using X chromosome inactivation patterns to trace the tumors' cellular origins.
- His work provided the first convincing evidence supporting Theodor Boveri’s early 20th-century hypothesis that tumors begin from a single cell dividing uncontrollably.
- Gartler was a faculty member at the University of Washington’s genetics department from 1957 and maintained an active research lab until 2007.
