By the time Henrietta Lacks’ now famous “immortal” cells were discovered in a Baltimore lab, they were on their way to launch a research renaissance —becoming the cornerstone of everything from the polio vaccine to cancer treatment as we know it. Yet the extraordinary gains wrought by her cells came at an equally extraordinary price: Ms. Lacks’s tissue donation had been taken without her knowledge, and neither she nor her family saw any benefit—financial or otherwise—from the scientific revolution that followed.

Years later, within the same halls of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Dr. Marielle Gross found herself face-to-face with this legacy while completing her residency training. The realization that her patient’s own cells might catalyze entire industries—unlocking personalized health insights in the process— yet somehow, still unbeknownst to the individual or their family, struck a chord. Having entered medical training armed with three degrees in ethics, Dr. Gross was primed to explore the ethical fault lines laid bare by Ms. Lacks’s story—fissures that remain hidden in plain sight, growing deeper with each passing year. She realized that no amount of scholarship could solve this problem— new technology was needed to overcome the misaligned incentives embedded in the biomedical enterprise by outdated ethics paradigms.

That pursuit has since evolved into de-bi, co., a venture with ambitions as lofty as they are radical: to fundamentally reframe the way medical research thinks about, collects and manages human biospecimens. Leveraging blockchain “rails” and other privacy-preserving technologies, de-bi, co. is advancing decentralized biobanking—a system that allows individuals not only to remain connected to the destiny of their donated tissues, but also to stay engaged at the cutting-edge of science and share rewards of research on their flesh and blood. It’s a vision that Dr. Gross believes will close the lethal gap between bench and bedside, democratize medical innovations, and ensure that the lessons of Henrietta’s cells are fully integrated into the model of how we care for every patient moving forwards.