The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, 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. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer and viruses; helped lead to in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks is buried in an unmarked grave. Her family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. 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.… (more)

Original publication date

2010-02-02

Media reviews

The New York Times Book Review

Skloot narrates the science lucidly, tracks the racial politics of medicine thoughtfully and tells the Lacks family’s often painful history with grace. She also confronts the spookiness of the cells themselves, intrepidly crossing into the spiritual plane on which the family has come to

understand their mother’s continued presence in the world. Science writing is often just about “the facts.” Skloot’s book, her first, is far deeper, braver and more wonderful.

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The New York Times

I put down Rebecca Skloot’s first book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” more than once. Ten times, probably. Once to poke the fire. Once to silence a pinging BlackBerry. And eight times to chase my wife and assorted visitors around the house, to tell them I was holding one of the most

graceful and moving nonfiction books I’ve read in a very long time.

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Booklist

Writing with a novelist's artistry, a biologist's expertise, and the zeal of an investigative reporter, Skloot tells a truly astonishing story of racism and poverty, science and conscience, spirituality and family, all driven by a galvanizing inquiry into the sanctity of the body and the very

nature of the life force.

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Bloomberg News

Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer in a “colored” hospital ward in Baltimore in 1951. She would have gone forever unnoticed by the outside world if not for the dime-sized slice of her tumor sent to a lab for research eight months earlier. ... Skloot, a science writer, has been fascinated

with Lacks since she first took a biology class at age 16. As she went on to earn a degree in the subject, she yearned to know more about the woman, anonymous for years, who was responsible for those ubiquitous cells....

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Publishers Weekly

Skloot tells a rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society's most vulnerable people.

Breast Cancer Action Germany

HeLa-Zellen – Zwischen Profit und Armut Henrietta Lacks wurde 1951 entsprechend der damaligen Standardtherapie mit Radium behandelt. Doch ihr Tumor ließ sich nicht mehr stoppen. Sie war 31 Jahre alt, als sie starb. Sie hinterließ fünf Kinder, der jüngste Sohn war damals ein Jahr alt. Weder

Henrietta Lacks noch die Familienangehörigen wussten, dass ihre Zellproben fortan von der Forschung genutzt und für Experimente gebraucht wurden. Die HeLa-Zellen wurden in Labors weltweit benutzt und kamen auch bei der Entwicklung der ersten Polio-Impfung zum Einsatz. Für die Entwicklung von Medikamenten gegen Leukämie, Parkinson und Grippe wurden die Zellen eingesetzt, ebenso wie bei der Erforschung der In-vitro-Fertilisation. Dr. Gey, der die Zellkulturen damals anlegte, verdiente selbst kein Geld damit, doch die Zellen waren „kommerzialisiert“, so die New York Times. Heute ist es auch bei uns üblich, dass durch Firmen, teils auch durch spezielle Firmenneugründungen, zunehmend auch von WissenschaftlerInnen versucht wird, in unseren medizinischen Einrichtungen entwickelte Entdeckungen ganz nebenbei in persönliche Nebeneinkünfte umzuwandeln, indem sie sich ihre Entdeckungen patentieren lassen und nebenbei zu Unternehmern werden. Die HeLa-Zellen werden heute weltweit verkauft und erbringen Millionenprofite. Profitinteressen und Medizin kommen zunehmend in Interessenskonflikte.

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