Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells -- taken without her knowledge -- became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons-- as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now 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; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia-- a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo -- to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family past and present 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.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?

Thanks to the investigative journalism and perseverance of science writer Rebecca Skloot, Henrietta Lacks' story is finally told. The author takes us through a decades-long saga of HeLa, a poor black tobacco farmer, and her family. Her very desirable cells were cultured and harvested without her consent, as they grew and survived indefinitely, unlike any previously encountered by medical researchers.
Despite her unsuccessful cancer treatment by Johns Hopkins and death from the disease in 1951, her cells launched an industry which profited both individuals and corporations. While public health advanced as a result, where do the boundary lines get drawn? What is fair compensation?
Skloot points out the racial and bio-ethical issues. Clearly, HeLa was exploited because of her race, denied human rights, dignity and respect from the medical personnel charged with treating her cancer as well as those who used her cells to benefit medical enterprises. Ironically, her family lacked basic health insurance.
Do you have ownership of your biological material? What happens to it when taken from you during the course of a doctor's care (moles, placenta, blood, cells, etc.)? Some of the answers and ethical questions raised may surprise you.
An excellent read, and sadly, a portrayal of many past injustices.