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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
First published 2009
About the book
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.
Read the full description
This New York Times bestseller takes readers on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers filled with HeLa cells, from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia, to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew.
Readers on Hardcover call it informative, emotional and reflective.
About the author
Subjects
Catalogue record
- Author
- Skloot, Rebecca, 1972–
- Statement
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks / Rebecca Skloot.
Book facts
- Pages
- 402
- ISBN
- 978-0-330-42623-7
4 more ISBNs
- 978-0-230-74869-9
- 978-1-76055-373-9
- 978-0-330-53344-7
- 978-1-5098-5442-4
- Records
- Open Library Wikidata
