HeLa is an immortal cell line used in scientific research. It is the oldest and most commonly used human cell line. The line was derived from cervical cancer cells taken on February 8, 1951 from Henrietta Lacks, a patient who died of cancer on October 4, 1951.
Gene mapping describes the methods used to identify the locus of a gene and the distances between genes. The essence of all genome mapping is to place a collection of molecular markers onto their respective positions on the genome.
Because cancer cells are quite divergent in term of chromosomal "patterns" compared to "normal" cell lines, they were not used in the efforts in the 1980's to late 1990s to map genetic loci on human chromosomes. Instead people used what are called "somatic cell hybrids": these are cell lines that are hybrids of two cells: for human gene mapping the preferred system was to create hybrids of rodent cell lines (mostly mouse and hamster) with human cell. This process is well described in:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22066/
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