Panelists in webinar address concerns raised over vaccines and fetal cell line Kurt Jensen / CNS | 01.15.2021 WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Participants in a Jan. 14 webinar sponsored by the Institute for Human Ecology at The Catholic University of America discussed concerns raised by some over a fetal cell line being used in some phase of COVID-19 vaccine development but concluded the cell line is probably sufficiently removed from the "original evil" to ameliorate Catholic apprehensions. A Dutch researcher in the 1970s developed HEK-293, or human embryonic kidney 293 cells. Their original source was an aborted female fetus. The cell line is used to manufacture the spike protein of the coronavirus, which, in a vaccine, triggers an immune response.