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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot
Broadway | TR | 978-1-4000-5218-9 400 pp. | $16.00/$18.00 Can. Also Available in Audio and as an eBook
About the Book In 1950, when most hospitals were still segregated by race, Henrietta Lacks, a young African American mother of five, entered the colored ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital to begin treatment for cervical cancer. As she lay on the operating table, a sample of her cancerous tissue was taken without her knowledge or consent and given to Dr. George Gey, a doctor who was conducting experiments in an attempt to grow human cells that could be used for scientific research. He hoped that using human cells would allow scientists to unlock the mysteries of cancer, and eventually lead to a cure for the disease. Until this point, all of Gey’s attempts to grow a human cell line had ended in failure, but Henrietta’s cells were different: they never died. Less than a year after finding out she had cancer, Henrietta died and was buried in an unmarked grave on her family’s land. She was only thirty-one years old. Her family had no idea that part of her was still alive and growing in laboratories, first at Johns Hopkins, and eventually all over the world. Thirty-seven years after Henrietta’s death, a sixteen-year-old high school student named Rebecca Skloot was sitting in a biology class when her instructor mentioned that HeLa, the first immortal human cell line ever grown in culture, had been taken from an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks. His casual remark sparked Skloot’s curiosity. She wanted to know more about Henrietta: Who was she? Did she have a family? What happened to them? When Rebecca Skloot was unable to find answers to her questions, she began a research project that would take over ten years to complete. In telling Henrietta’s story, Skloot researched primary sources and recorded personal interviews. Skloot’s investigation of the true story behind HeLa eventually led her to the surviving members of the Lacks family. As she searched for information about Henrietta’s life, Rebecca grew close to the Lacks family, especially Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, who also wanted to learn about her mother. This book also explores the birth and life of the immortal cell line that was taken from and named after Henrietta Lacks: HeLa. These cells have helped create scientific and medical breakthroughs and, because of HeLa, we have laws and policies that protect the rights of patients and research subjects. As the story of HeLa unfolds, so does the story of Henrietta’s surviving children, especially Deborah Lacks, who did not remember her mother or know that her cells were still alive and being sold. As Rebecca Skloot worked to gain Deborah’s trust, Deborah struggled to understand the truth about what had happened to her mother and her mother’s cells. The book you are about to read tells this story: how Henrietta Lacks lived, how she died, and how her “immortal” cells continue to live and help us all.
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