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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (view source)
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In John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, in October 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a mother of five children, died of cervical cancer at the age of 31. However, a sample of her cancer cells taken the same year lived on, grew and reproduced. Often referred to as HeLa cells, cells with their origins in the original sample are still being used in medical and scientific research today, nearly sixty years on. Many of the scientific breakthroughs that have been made using HeLa cells are hugely profitable. But her children have spent their lives in low waged jobs and on welfare, unable to afford basic [[Does Health Insurance Work|health insurance]]. Understandably they feel a lot of anger at this injustice.
When she first learned about HeLa on a college course aged 16, the teacher mentioned in passing that these cells came from a black woman, and she started to wonder then about the person behind the story. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a sort of biography of a woman and her family, particularly her daughter Deborah Lacks, with whom Skloot spent a lot of time while researching the book.
