Even though these cells launched a multimillion-dollar industry, her family never saw a portion of the profits. Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until nearly twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. From Henrietta’s small hometown in Virginia to East Baltimore in the early 2000s where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her short life and immortal cells.
#The immortal life of henrietta lacks full book full
In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot takes us from the cancer ward at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. Like mice, Henrietta’s cells have become the standard laboratory workhorse. Their chromosomes and proteins have been studied with such precision that scientists know their every detail. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine uncovering secrets of cancer and viruses helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization and gene mapping and have been bought and sold by the billions. This makes them ideal for large scale testing.
They are also immortal – meaning they will divide again and again and again without dying off. These cells grow unusually fast, doubling their count in only 24 hours. HeLa cells are still alive today even though she died nearly seventy years ago. Why is it then that few have heard of their namesake? In fact, if you Google “HeLa cells,” your search will yield 30,000,000+ hits. Henrietta’s cells – Hela cells – were taken without her knowledge and have become one of the most important tools in medicine. She passed away at a young age and, from the beginning, her doctors knew that there was something unusual about the cancer cells on her cervix. Published in 2010, this novel tells the story of a mother and poor Southern tobacco farmer named Henrietta Lacks. Unlike Fleming’s fairly innocuous discovery, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot captures the story of another major scientific discovery – this one with grave human consequences. But he also noticed that this mold prevented the growth of his bacteria – and thus was the advent of Penicillin. Fleming returned from a two week vacation to find mold contaminating one of his bacterial culture plates.
Take Andrew Fleming, for example, who mistakenly discovered Penicillin in 1928.
There are moments in scientific discovery that are undeniably important in modern medicine and research.
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