The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer whose cells became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects; and have been bought and sold by billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown.\nNow Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the "colored" ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells. Henrietta's family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry, her family never saw any of the profits. As Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.\nAn unabridged recording on 10 CDs (12 hours, 31 minutes).\nIncludes an interview with the author.