[kaybe]

I'm not sure I completely trust research done on HeLa cells. Those things are seriously weird.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa

PS: On the other hand, if something kills those things..

[phkahler]

Know what's really funny? Iodine kills HeLa cells, but according to this paper that's a problem:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24219135

Iodine has been claimed to induce apoptosis in a number of cancer types while remaining harmless to normal cells.

[subcosmos]

Interesting, I wonder if it's linked with thyroid hormones. In culture, that would seem odd, unless it's binding to receptors in a manner that hormones would, or competing with hormones in the growth serum?

I'm only a make-believe biologist.

[phkahler]

I'm beginning to think the thyroid hormones are just a storage mechanism for iodine. The hormones T1, T2, T3, and T4 are actually named for the number of Iodine atoms in the molecule.