The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a novel written by Rebecca Skloot, a science reporter, depicting the lives of Henrietta Lacks’s family and their connection between them and Henrietta’s famous cancer cells “HeLa Cells”. Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951 and was treated with radium and radiation therapy. During her treatment process, the tumor and other cancerous tissue that was removed from her body was sent George Gey's lab at Hopkins to be grown in test tubes all without Lacks’s consent or knowledge. The cells were successfully able to divide and give the scientific community a good supply of human cancer cells to experiment on. The Lacks’s family was never informed about the cells even when there were amazing

HeLa cells were used in all kinds of research and cure many diseases. They were used in the first mission to space to see what would happen to cells in zero gravity, they were a very important part to finding the polio vaccine, they were used in cloning, gene mapping and also in vitro fertilization (History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places/ Smithsonian). Henrietta never had claim to her cell and what they did until 20 years after she died and finally, even after efforts to keep it hiding, in 1970s her real name started to leak out into the

Henrietta’s cell helped us fight a lot of diseases just because her cells

HeLa was an immortal line of cells that led to many scientific discoveries. The book “The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks” has many different points you can view from. The book shows how history changed over time, how being African American and poor gets you no rights to privacy, and most importantly how medicine advanced because of Henrietta’s cells. Henrietta was one of ten children. Her mother died while giving birth in a barn.

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” is a book by Rebecca Skloot journaling the story of the title woman and how her “immortal” cells have impacted science. The book starts out with a word from the author Skloot, where she recounts how she got involved in Henrietta’s story. Chapter one begins with Henrietta going to the doctors at John Hopkins on January 29th 1951 to get tested for a “knot” she felt inside her. The 1st doctor she went to couldn’t identify the cause and recommended she go to John Hopkins hospital. John Hopkins was not only one of the top hospitals at the time, it was also the only nearby major hospital that treated black patients.

Shortly after this happened Henrietta died from the cervical cancer on October 4, 1951. It wasn’t until two decades later that Henriettas name was released to the press, and it wasn’t until even later in the 1990’s when Rebecca Skloot heard of HeLa cells and was interested why there was so little information about her. Skloot then comes into contact with Henriettas family and most importantly forms a bond with Deborah, Henrietta’s oldest daughter. This bond with Deborah was crucial to find out information of Henrietta. While researching the bond grows and Skloot realizes that Deborah just wants to learn as much as possible about her mother like she wants too (Skloot Deborah really just wants her mother’s story to be told and people to realize that there is a person behind all the

Book: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a fascinating and thought-provoking book that explores the life and legacy of Henrietta Lacks, a woman whose cells are used without her knowledge or consent in groundbreaking medical research. The book was written by journalist Rebecca Skloot, who spent years researching Henrietta's story and interviewing her family members. Skloot does an excellent job of weaving Henrietta's personal history within the broader scientific context of the time, exploring topics such as race, class, and medical ethics.

A main goal and component of this biography is to humanize Henrietta. Skloot aims to inform the reader about the woman behind the science; she is not Helen Lane or HeLa, but a woman who had a life and a family. Actions of the scientific community severely affected not only her, but the next generation of the Lacks family. Skloot goes on to describe her family background as well as giving an in-depth description of Henrietta herself. An element that Skloot especially emphasizes was how much Henrietta cared about her appearance: Henrietta spent hours taking care of those nails, touching up the chips and brushing on new coats of polish.

While receiving treatment for her tumor, doctors decided to take samples without her knowledge. They found her cells to be quite extraordinary, that they contain a special enzyme that no one else has ever had. The cells do not die, they became the first immortal human cell line to grow in culture, they are known as HeLa cells. Henrietta’s cells had been used so much in research that it is estimated that there were over 50 million metric tons in the world at the time when Skloot was writing the novel. With her cells gaining popularity and recognition in the medical research field the Lacks family had no knowledge of this at all.

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot is a captivating non-fiction book that explores the fascinating story of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cancer cells were unknowingly taken and used for medical research without her consent in the 1950s. The book cover depicts a photograph of Henrietta Lacks herself, adding a personal touch to the story and emphasizing the importance of her life and legacy. Skloot's thorough research and poignant storytelling shed light on the complicated ethical issues surrounding medical research and the impact that Henrietta's cells, known as HeLa cells, have had on modern medicine. In "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," Rebecca Skloot masterfully tells the story of a woman

Selfishness is a major key point in this book. As mentioned above, Henrietta’s family did not find out until 25 years later about the use of her cells. You can tell that once the medical field found something that could benefit them with money, and business, they are going to take advantage of that. They hid a big thing that violated an individual's rights to benefit them. Them waiting 25 years to mention it to Henrietta’s family also gave them the opportunity to not have them take away the cells.

As dark and horrid as the beginning of the HeLa research program was, there was a come to peace and rightfully settling of human advancement through Henrietta’s ultimate sacrifice of life. Through Henrietta’s pain, agony and de-humanization if it wasn’t for her unknown personal effort, much impact has been made on quality of human intuition towards certain toxins, viruses and other illnesses. The HeLa cells has established a line of defense towards protecting any further harmful testing to be conducted on other living creatures such as animals and humans. Unknown illnesses and viruses can be tested against the HeLa cells to exemplify how a human body cell may take effect against harmful illnesses and viruses. Ultimately for the greater good, Henrietta’s family over the years could come to the consensus of peace and acceptance through her impact on scientific research.

The book summarizes her life and family, her cells, and their significance to science. Skloot successfully argues that Lacks’s cells became a scientific marvel, being used world wide, which her family had absolutely no knowledge of. The background of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks all comes back to an eager

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks, aided by journalist Rebecca Skloot. Deborah wanted to learn about her mother, and to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever. It is a story of medical arrogance and triumph, race, poverty and deep friendship between the unlikeliest people. There had been many books published about Henrietta’s cells, but nothing about Henrietta’s personality, experiences, feeling, life style etc.

Society today is greatly affected by science. Cell phones, computers, and social media are just some of the many facets of technology that we use in our everyday lives. To most people, this technology is wonderful, but Mary Shelley provides us with a caveat. In her novel Frankenstein, science and the pursuit of knowledge are recurrent themes. The novel starts off with Walden trying to make a discovery in the North Pole, and follows with a story about how Victor Frankenstein deals with his creation.