Everyone involved in medical research and research ethics should have this book on their reading list. In particular, teachers and scholars should advice students in medicine and the health sciences to read it. Focus and discussion should be on the many ethical questions and dilemmas that are raised, ie. between the individual and the community. No one is left untouched by the destiny and frustration of the Lacks family which is a gripping story in and as of itself. For academics the core of the matter are the informed consent and how the patient and the family should or ought be compensated on the one hand, and the intellectual property rights and economic benefit for the individual researcher, the scientific community, and the population at large on the other.

I enjoyed that parallel stories of the Lacks family and the scientific issues. Both stories are well written and enlightening. She explains the scientific concepts in terms a lay person can understand. "Appalling" was a term that came to mind throughout the book. There was appalling treatment of the African Americans by bigotted whites and appalling studies conducted on unaware patients by god-playing doctors. I learned as much about racism in America as I did about science. On the downside, the book dragged in the middle. It would have benefitted from tighter editing. I got tired of the Lacks family whining, chapter after chapter. Skloot closes the book by highlighting some significant bioethical issues still pending in the court system.

I found this book to be very well written. This book is written in a way to be understood. My heart breaks for the Lacks family. Ms. Skloot asks and answers all the questions you find yourself wondering about.

This book is excellent on so many different levels. It is the fascinating, true life story of a family living in an era gone by as well as a book that makes you stop and think about the moral dilemmas intrinsic to scientific advancements as well as the immorality of racism. The author is obviously personally involved but a factual reporter. She doesn't preach but leaves it to the reader to examine issues that we rarely think about. I read this book in a day and couldn't put it down.

This was probably one the most interesting books I have ever read. Why do most people not know about HeLa cells? This should be mandatory reading in high school! An amazing story of how one woman's life and death touches our own everyday. Rebecca Skloot does a wonderful job bringing the charecters to life and making us feel like we know them all. Thank you Rebecca for all the hard work. It was definetly worth it!

In the very first chapter of this work, Henrietta Flacks and family members are quoted directly in settings and intimate conversations, but no sources are given. Without these substantiations it is fiction and cast doubt upon the credulity of the rest of work. And I so much looked forward to this material.

Henrietta Lacks was born to an impoverished family of in rural Virginia in 1920. Her family worked on the same tobacco fields that their slave ancestors did during the preceding century, and after her mother died she grew up in her grandfather's dilapidated log cabin that served as slave quarters. She left school after the sixth grade to pick tobacco for ten cents per day on the farms of local whites. Henrietta had her first child with her first cousin Day at age 14, and they eventually married and moved to a small town outside of Baltimore during World War II so that Day could work at Bethlehem Steel for less than 80 cents an hour.

In early 1951, Henrietta went to the gynecology clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital after feeling a "knot" in her womb. After she was taken to a "Colored" examination room, the gynecologist on duty found a firm mass on her cervix that seemed cancerous, but was unlike anything he had ever seen. He sent a slice of the mass for analysis, and Henrietta was soon diagnosed with cervical cancer.

Henrietta returned to Johns Hopkins a few weeks later, where she underwent treatment for cervical cancer. She was given a generalized consent form that gave permission for her doctors to perform any operative procedures necessary to treat her illness. However, she was not told that one of the staff gynecologists was collecting specimens of clinic patients with cervical cancer for a clinical study, and biopsies of healthy and cancerous cervical tissues were taken from her during her initial procedure. The cancerous cells, which were named HeLa after the first two letters of Henrietta's first and last names, proved to be the first human cells that could be grown indefinitely in a nutrient broth, and the Johns Hopkins researchers were overjoyed at this long awaited success.

The treatment she received at Hopkins was state of the art, but was unsuccessful, due to the aggressive nature of her primary tumor, and she succumbed to her illness several months later. The researchers wanted to acquire more specimens from her tumor ridden body by performing an autopsy with biopsies. Her husband, after initially denying a request for an autopsy, was misled into agreeing to allow the Hopkins pathologists to perform a limited autopsy, after he was told that the doctors wanted to run tests that might help his children someday.

The HeLa cell line was provided to scientists and organizations worldwide for minimal cost, as neither the researchers nor Johns Hopkins profited from the first immortal human cell line. However, a number of companies made millions of dollars by mass producing HeLa and selling them at a much higher cost. HeLa was used in numerous important biomedical studies, including the development of the Salk polio vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh in the mid-1950s, cancer and viral research projects, and studies of the effects of weightlessness and space travel on the human body by NASA.

During this time Henrietta's husband and children were completely unaware that her cells had been harvested for medical research by the Hopkins doctors. By that time most of them were living in poverty in Baltimore, and were unable to afford basic health insurance. Articles about HeLa began to appear in medical journals and in the lay press, but it wasn't until 1973 that the family accidentally learned about the HeLa cell line. The family was contacted by Johns Hopkins, so that their cells could be analyzed and compared to those taken from Henrietta 22 years earlier. Once again they were misled into believing that the purpose of these tests was to determine if any of her children also had cancer, which caused Deborah, Henrietta's oldest surviving daughter, many years of anguish.

Once Henrietta's name was released in the media, the family was besieged by journalists and others wishing to profit from her story, causing her husband and children to become distrustful and wary.

Rebecca Skloot became interested in Henrietta Lacks after hearing about the HeLa cell line and its forgotten host as an undergraduate student. She spent many months and countless hours attempting to contact the Lacks family, and she slowly but painfully gained the trust of Deborah and her siblings, after she promised to tell the family's story alongside the history of HeLa.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a fantastic achievement, given the hurdles that Skloot had to overcome to obtain information from the Lacks family, Johns Hopkins, and the other key actors in this story. In addition to an in-depth history of this ordinary yet quite remarkable family, she provides just the right amount of information about HeLa and what it meant for biomedical research, along with information about informed consent from the 1950s to the present, the effect of race on medical care in the United States and the views of African-Americans toward medical experimentation, and the biology of cancer. The book is meant for a lay audience, but it would be of interest to those with a formal medical background. I found the book to be a bit overly sentimental and personal at times, but this is a very minor criticism of a fabulous book.

The life of Henrietta Lacks unfolds into a powerful story about a woman, wife and mother who has received little recognition for what her cells have given the medical community. Her family remained relatively unaware of her contribution until the medical community started approaching them about obtaining their DNA and cells. I would definitely recommend to every woman out there and others interested in the continuing life of a woman who died long ago.

A WONDERFULLY DONE STORY ALBEIT A TRUE ONE. A masterful job by "Boo" Skloot. The Brilliance of the scientists superimposed on the ignorance of some of the Lacks family. It must have been an arduous task for the authr. She has created a great read.
Marty Friedman

I grew up in East Baltimore in Baltimore, Maryland. I lived about ten blocks from Johns Hopkins Hospital and always heard older people talking about others, especally African americans, who were missing due to experiments at Johns Hopkins Hospital. I also remember going to Harriet Lane for medical care and never liked the dark feeling I always had when going there. I also remember that my Mother never allowed the doctors to do anything to her children without her thoroughly discussing it and thinking about. I asked her why and she said because she knew a lady a long time ago that came to JHH and strange things happened to her. Because of this book, I now know why. I applaud the author for being brave and caring enough to write this story. Its a scandal and a shame that JHH never came to the family to help them really understand what happened to their Mother before the events written in this book became public and provide them with the compensation they should have gotten years ago for this. I hope that many people read this book because it tells the truth about how medicine today has been able to advance due to the innocence and ignorance of one black women, Henrietta Lacks.

I found that i could not put this book down! It was thought provoking and well written. Very good insight into the history of medicinal research in the U.S. and how people are used in this country without their knowlege to "further the common good". Paints a very good picture of how the less fortunate among us can be used to further the quality of health care in the United States without being able to afford the benefits that they helped create!! A very timely book for the current health care debate!

This is simply an extraordinary book. I purchased it when I heard a review on NPR and was intrigued by the science and ethics part of the story - but when I read it I was even more captivated by the human side of the story. Rebecca Skloot obviously has the facts buttoned down - and this book will probably become required reading in university medical ethics classes. The "Afterword" alone is a most fascinating review of the ethics and case law involved - but reading it without the color and nuance added by the preceding chapters would be missing the point. The story of Henrietta Lacks and her family is so skillfully woven through the science that the reader emerges at the end with a deeper understanding of the issues and a new appreciation for how human emotion plays a part. This beautifully crafted book combines history, science and sociology lessons (along with some unanswered questions) wrapped in a rich and engaging storyline that is a pleasure to read.

I was engrossed by this story of medical shenanigans and the family who paid the ultimate price for such negligence.

The author's endeavor to paint an accurate portrayal of the incidents involved in culturing the Hela cells is mind boggling.The medical community seemed to have no regress concerning the Lacks' family with the exception of one or two subservient physicians who were in no position to make any changes.

Skloot's relationship with Deborah, the youngest daughter, was phenomenal. She gained her trust despite such overwhelming odds. Their friendship seemed one of mutual respect and a life long desire to uncover all the minute details regarding the exploitation of Henrietta's cells. But Skloot had to overcome years of doubt, misgivings, and distrust of anyone delving into family history.Putting it simply, Deborah was a tough nut to crack. Through her genuine warmth, compassion, and scientific knowledge, Skloot became a trusted confidant of Deborah.

The author's skill at telling this story in such a dramatic manner made me anxious to continue reading far into the night to unveil the events as they occurred.Her writing style is simple, clear, and to the point. This reads like fiction as one story line develops into the next. The emphasis is on the human interest side of this story rather than a scholarly approach. It is one of those books that you can hardly bear to put down. It was also with regret that the story came to an end.

It is hard to know that these same medical conditions exist as of right now that allowed this travesty to happen. Beware what body parts you part with and their final destination. It is rewarding in some small way for the Lacks' family to know the medical progress accomplished due to Hela cells. But some monetary remuneration along the way would have made all their lives a little easier.

You will not be disappointed with this book.

An interesting read that shows how medicine really is a science of trial and error and in this lady's case mostly error. Yet, what happened because of her own particular differences may help change the medical world.

I could not put the book down. I read most of it aloud and really got into character. I was telling everyone that this was the book to get. It was so informative and captivating. As Henrietta was going through I felt like I was right there. I could really feel the pain of Deborah and her family. Rebecca Skloot brought this truth alive with compassion and empathy. Thank you for not being too afraid to get the whole story. It was like a well of fresh water that dried up too soon.

This book was an excellent read. All the complicated jargon was kept to a minimum, and the medical/legal terms were fully explained. Although the book skips around in time, the story was easy to follow. I don't usually read books in one sitting, since leisure time is short, but this book was devoured in only a few hours. Skloot's first book is a real winner, and I can't wait to read her next work. Great job!

This is an amazing, groundbreaking book. Though I've listed it under "biographies and memoirs," that really doesn't do the book justice. It's part biography, part science, part ethics and philosophy. Rebecca Skloot seamlessly weaves the stories of Henrietta, her family, her cells, her doctors, and her cells' impact on science and ethics. The biographical parts are written with a blunt but sensitive pen, the science is explained clearly enough so that even someone like me -- who hasn't taken biology since 9th grade -- can follow it, if not truly grasp the deeper implications of it, and the ethical issues are laid out as precisely and clearly as possible.

I've never seen a book like this, that so easily and completely straddles the line between biography, science textbook, journalism, and metaphysical pondering. You know how Goodreads always asks "Who would you recommend this to?" I can't think of a single person who wouldn't connect with this book in some way, even if only for the ethical implications that we all have tissue taken from us, and none of us have a say in where it goes.

I have only read the reviews, trying to decide if I want to read this book.

I think I need to read the book just to make sure the author makes a note that cells are no longer used for research without a patient's permission (from the reviews, it sounds like this bit of info is missing).

'paying' for a patient's contribution is not even close to being practical. First of all, turning a cancer biopsy into a cell line isn't a sure thing. Many stop growing after a few passages and won't survie in cell culture. Second of all, the researchers themselves are not making money off of those contributions. If a cell line does become useful and is made available commercially, patient privacy (HIPAA laws) prevent anyone from being able to connect that cell line to the original patient.

This book held me spell bound not only while reading it, but since. I feel the urge to get to know the wonderful author who did so much searching and coaxing with the family, overcoming their concerns, to tell us about Henrietta Lacks. I have included a page on Henrietta Lacks under Famous Americans on my website. I want children to learn about the woman who made so many medical advances possible. [...]

I am a scientist with a graduate degree however I was not aware of the vast impact of HeLa cells. The human element to this story is amazing. I liked that the book is a mix of the contributions of HeLa cells, a historical account of the family and also brings up a lot of interesting bioethical questions. The author has obviously done extensive research and was very detailed in her account. The writing is not the most polished but considering the amount of work and dedication and that this is Rebecca's first book I found it a very powerful read. If you are interested in science in any way buy this book!

This is a good read, a little drawn out, but you really get to know the people involved at an intimate level. Definitely worth reading.

Usually a book is either a great story, or well written, or enthralling or informative. This is one of the few I've ever read that tick all four boxes. I bought the audio version, and even after hours on the road I found myself sitting in the driveway because I was so caught up in the story wanted to know what happened next.
It seamlessly incorporates the writer's journey into the story of Henrietta and her family, all the while asking ethical questions that need to be answered. It's a wonderful book, and the audio voice is enthralling. I can't praise it highly enough.

This book was excellent - well researched, with Henrietta Lacks' story told in a compelling way. Loved every bit of it and now have a whole new perspective on the world of cell research.

I read a great review on the New York Times and bought the book, but it is not as good as I thought. Skloot discusses very interesting issues pertaining history and science intelligently, but the book doesn't go very deeply into them as it focus on Lacks. Still will recommend, difficult to put down.

After reading the reviews here and on other media I couldn't wait to get this book. It has not been disappointing. I feel like Henrietta Lacks was born to be the great contributor to science and medicine. However, this story once again validates Black Americans' distrust of medical studies and vaccines. This is but one story of the many that will never get published.

This is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. Even better, it's a true story that combines science with the story of a family and the story of American society yet it reads like a novel or mystery. I couldn't put it down. Others have detailed the plot - all I will say is if you have not read this book yet, don't wait any longer.

Reading the book now, and all I can say is WOW! Amazon delivered the book within record time! Love shopping with Amazon! Keep up the great work!

I read this book faster than I normally do (and I read fast). This is the most amazing book I have read in a long time. I found it similar in style of the books And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts or A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr. This is not a book about cancer (although I am battling it now) but a story to me about love and the medical community. I learned a great deal but thought it was all presented so easily for understanding but also in equality to both the medical community but also to the Lacks family. If it had not been for Entertainment Weekly's profile, I may not have found this book. It is a must read!

The author has set herself a difficult task here, toggling back and forth between the history and the science of the harvesting of Henrietta Lacks's cells and their importance to research and discovery, and the human story of Henrietta Lacks's children, uneducated, poor, without health insurance, some criminal, and all without a cent to show for the billions that have been made from the marketing of their mother's cells. Does author Skloot succeed? Only about halfway. The science can be hard going for a general audience. Skloot does somewhat better presenting the legal and philosophical arguments for and against the use of human tissue in medical research without the consent of or compensation to the human donor. The book gets bogged down in what should be its most accessible part: the tale of Henrietta's family. Skloot was constantly threatened with being cut off from access to the Lacks family, and it shows. There's not a whisper of outrage here about a fourteen-year-old's impregnation by the nineteen-year-old cousin with whom she'd shared a bedroom since she was four; and while Skloot does say, quietly, that Henrietta's husband-that same cousin--brought "bad blood" (syphilis) home to her from other women, and much later acknowledges quietly that the cervical cancer that killed her was sexually transmitted, she never lays the blame for Henrietta's death at her husband's feet and apparently never makes it plain to Henrietta's profoundly ignorant children that it was their father who ultimately caused their mother's death. Narrative holes in the story aren't explained; Sonny Lacks's children appear to have sprung into existence without the medium of a mother; the only daughter of central figure Deborah Lacks all but vanishes from the story after her infancy. We get, instead, an embarrassing and prolonged account of a laying-on-of-hands by a Lacks cousin. This is Skloot's first book, and a dedicated editor who wasn't afraid of the Lacks family was needed. Should tissue be harvested from human donors without their consent, and, even if consent is given, should the donors be compensated? The book explores that question in detail while appropriately leaving the difficult answer up to the reader. What is plain, even in this uneven and somewhat undisciplined book, is that the uneducated, poor, inbred and syphilis-damaged Lacks family certainly could have used a cut of all that money that still is being made from the marketing of Henrietta's cells.

I found this a most readable, thought-provoking story concerning the HeLa cell culture of 1951 (the year I completed medical school) which answers many questons we had at that time but which also considers several serious ethical problems. Who would have foreseen the longevity of the culture strain or the multiple uses to which it has been applied?

This book is great. Not only is it about Henrietta's life and family, but also about informed medical consent and cell culture. ( But not too too scientific.) Its a true story but written like a novel. I recommend it to anyone in the health care field or those interested in history. Fasinating story.

An exceptionally well written book detailing not only the history of the HeLa cell line, but also the life of the woman they came from, as well as the family she left behind. An excellent read!

Just purchased this book and have not yet read it due to my busy work schedule but I am excited about the work this author has done.......very interesting

I read just the reviews of this book and knew I had to have it. I was not disappointed. Although I'm not scientifically knowledgeable, it was easy to read, and the personal stories of the families involved kept me interested. I read it in a weekend and wish it kept going.

I am only half way through this book and I can't put it down. Its such a wonderful story. I love the science and the medical discoveries that are discussed.

LOVE IT. Highly recommended

This book grabbed my attention just a day before it was released and I couldn't wait to order it and get it in my hands; I have not been disappointed! I have read it and am still baffled at how a figure like Henrietta Lacks and her amazing "contribution" to society have gone unknown by almost everyone. The book is written in very easy to understand language and I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes one of the most popular AND educational books in libraries and schools across the country.

Hats off to Rebecca Skloot for this brilliant book!

There are many great reviews on this book (unfortunately, I had higher priority school materials to read first), so I'll just provide my general impressions here.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an extraordinary book written by a journalist whose commitment to the story goes beyond that typically seen in today's books. Skloot spends years with the Lacks family, particularly Henrietta's daughter Deborah, in order to provide a side of the HeLa cells story from a completely different (and quite sympathetic) point of view. She also digs deep into the racist medical practices of Johns Hopkins hospital in the '50s.

There is so much meat to this journey -- the very scary history of genetic research in the past 50 years, the story of Henrietta herself, the changing emotions of her children and husband, and the impact of her cancer cells in health science even today. I don't normally use the cliche of "a book I can't put down," but in this case it is absolutely true. I was riveted by all the details and pretty well frightened when Skloot said that there still aren't enough laws to protect my tissues from being used without my knowledge.

This book reads very cinematically. Skloot provides vivid images of the characters, their surroundings, and the road trips she takes with Deborah. If a producer does make The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks into a film, I truly hope that he/she gives the profits to the Lacks children and grandchildren. It's shameful that they cannot get health care when their ancestor's cells have brought so much profit to the health sector. On the bright side, author Skloot promised to give money from the book sales to the grandchildren.

I would recommend this for people interested in health science, African American history and the politics of race, as well as very good journalism.

I usually prefer fiction, but few fiction novels could equal this true story of the woman whose cells made possible so many scientific advances. Her family's attempts to come to terms with her death and to truly understand what happened to Henrietta and her cells is an intriguing and totally absorbing story. Through the story of this family we also understand a bit of what life was like for African Americans in the 50's, how tricky race relations can be even 50 years later, and how important education is for individuals to truly understand their rights. If you don't find yourself questioning the limits of scientific experimentation and the extent of individual rights and medical privacy after finishing this book, you haven't been paying attention.

Skloot is a fantastic writer. The science is easy to understand, and the family is portrayed with real understanding. Highly recommended.

One of the Lacks family's issues was the lack of recognition given to Henrietta's contribution to medical science. I doubt many people would disagree with them, and I'm somewhat amazed that Johns Hopkins University hasn't already established a scholarship for African American students who study biology and/or want to go into medicine. Their Development staff would seem to have a fertile hunting ground amid all the companies who have made millions from this woman's cells, and who might want to balance the scales a wee bit by contributing to such a fund.

After reading the prologue of this book at Amazon.com, I ordered two copies! The first was for our family (my father suffered from polio twice in his lifetime, later dying young of prostate cancer), plus I wanted our daughter to read it given her interest in medical research as a college major. The second went to my daughter's high school Honors Biology instructor, a Colon cancer survivor who is miraculously recovering now from Leukemia, including a recent stem cell transplant! All these medical conditions and their respective treatments/cures (plus so much more) can be linked to HeLa cells.

As a non-scientific freelance writer, I was amazed and impressed at the level of thorough research done for this book (check out the credits in the back!), plus the easy-to-read flow that explained the issues for lay people.

For the science crowd, here is the comment that came back from my daughter's teacher when she received the book:

"What a surprise you sent me! I have known about Henrietta Lacks since I first started teaching and my colleague told me about the 'Helen Lane' cells. I include it every year in our class discussion about cell division. It was only a few years ago thanks to the internet that I found out it was Henrietta Lacks and a bit of info about her. This book is great though because it includes the whole story about her, the treatment of blacks in the 40s and 50s, the value of her cells, the process they went through to grow cells and figure out transport, the ethics of it all and the story of her family. I absolutely love it and am considering using it for my summer AP Bio reading assignment in addition to or instead of Dr. Tatiansa's Sex Advice to All Creation, another great book. Anyway I can't thank you enough; I am already on chapter 17 and should finish it this week. I love it!
Thank you!

Get this for anyone you know who is into science, medical research, bioethics, African-American history, race relations, or simply someone who enjoys a good non-fiction read! While you're at it, make a contribution to the scholarship fund for Henrietta's descendants as the author so generously suggests. We cannot change the inequities of the past, but we can - in our own small way - impact the future.

I don't normally read nonfiction except for how to books. This phenomenal piece of journalism was a can't put it down read, something I usually reserve for truly special novels. The family is so well developed, the result of Ms. Skloot working with them and getting to know them over the course of many years; you know them as well as any character in a well told tale. Her writing is clear, she explains the science in a way that I could understand. She did the same for the legal issues and more importantly, the race issues including the horrible treatment of blacks by the medical establishment. The only downside was for the long and fairly dry epilogue, but maybe this is normal in this type of book.

I'm not African-American, nor am I a scientist or a lawyer, but through this engaging book, I feel so much better informed about so many topics. My heart goes out to the Lacks family.

I loved this book. Multilayered - a story about scientific discovery, and how 1 little discovery can make such an impact on the world. A story about African-American life in the 1950's. A story about an author's obsession with a story she just has to pursue despite the odds. A story about a family in upheaval. A story about how the arrogance of scientists, researchers, and physicians creates so much suffering, and about how the honest dedication of scientists, researchers and physicians relieves so much suffering. And more. I listened to the audio version from [...], it was very well done.

I don't usually read nonfiction, but I heard an interview with Ms Skloot and became intrigued. She really brings you in and introduces you to a person and a family. You get to know the history behind the science, without becoming bored by a biology lesson. This is a great book. I'll be expecting more passion and stories from this author in the future.

This is a book that everyone should read. It brings light the question of how much a person owns of their own body and how lighly that ownership can mean to the scientific community.

If you have ever been in a hospital, you have to wonder what all has been done with your genetic materials while you were there; what reports were generated, and who received those reports.

I don't know why this book has such great reviews. I found it tedious and could barely finish it at the end. The cell history and research was interesting but not compelling. The characters were interesting but again, not compelling.

I don't understand the great reviews on this book, not my cup of tea.

It's hard to figure out how to describe this book. It's obviously a labor of love, both for the science and the people affected by the science. There's a lot of empathy, intelligence, and compassion in this book. The writing is meticulous and evocative. The two threads of the book, described in so many other reviews, fit together in ways I could not have predicted. The explanations of the science involved are phenomenal; they appear to me to be suitable for both scientifically literate readers and those who barely remember what they learned of science in primary school. Likewise, the people she writes about in the other thread are brought to life by her descriptions, without patronizing them or marginalizing their lives in any way.

I think this book is about love. It's about the love of the science, the love of the people involved, and the love of truth (or maybe that's Truth). The stories are vividly told, and impossible to forget. The issues raised by the HeLa line of cells are not played down, nor are they sensationalized. They are simply presented in a way that makes it clear how no answer is completely right, at least not so far.

I will read anything this author writes in the future, on any topic, even one I don't think I care about.

It's been a long time since I've stayed up all night reading a book I couldn't put down, but this book and Henrietta's story just gripped me from the first page! Skloot's book is so worthy of my sleeplessness and discomfort here at work the next day as I replay the harrowing account of a woman and family mistreated by medical science and their painful journey to understanding and healing. Skloot weaves an engrossing tail that reads as smoothly as fiction, and for Henrietta's sake, I only wish it was fiction. I can't get this story out of my mind today, and I am so thankful for Skloot bringing this to life!

I rated this book a 4 star only because I don't think anything is perfect. It came very close to the top of the best books I've ever read. Very informative, I knew almost nothing of cells or cancer, or the laws governing them. Very human, couragous family, shown warts and all. Hurray and thank you, Henrietta, alias Hela.

This has been my "car" book for the last couple of weeks. I read it when I'm waiting for the kids to be done with whatever they're doing. I've had a couple of good streches with it and either way I'm always anxious to pick it back up. It's a great mix of history, science, culture, and human interest. So many times we look at American history like we learned it in school and forget that there's always a complexity to how we got where we are. The story of the HeLa cells is a long and complicated one. It brings up a huge variety of questions that aren't and can't be answered by one book. The author however does a great job of humanizing the story while keeping it interest on a technical and historical level.

Open google and type in "HeLa cells," and a million and a half hits appear. This is because these cells are used and known universally throughout the medical world; far, far more than any other cell line. What has been much less well known is that HeLa stands for Henrietta Lacks, the woman from whom the original cells were taken. In "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," Rebecca Skloot--a born storyteller--set out to tell both stories, Henrietta's and the cells'.

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a poor African-American woman living in Baltimore, was diagnosed with a virulent form of cervical cancer, and began receiving treatment at Johns Hopkins. During the same period, scientists had been trying to culture an "immortal" cell line: a line of cells that would survive for an extended period of time in the laboratory. All of their attempts had failed.

Without the knowledge of Henrietta or her family (a quite common situation), doctors took samples from her cervix and sent them to a lab to culture. Several days later, it became clear that they had finally found an immortal cell line--HeLa, as it was named, following the conventions of the time, multiplied rapidly and was virtually indestructible. By the time Henrietta died, eight months later, her cells were famous.

In the intervening years, HeLa cells were used for everything from the development of the polio vaccine to testing how cells survive in space. Henrietta's family, however, did not learn of the cell line until decades later, and then found it frustratingly difficult to get information from the medical world, which rarely told them anything and provided information of only the most technical kind.

The family's difficulties were exacerbated by both their scientific illiteracy and their timidity about challenging doctors. Neither is a condemnation: in a country where the reality of evolution is still being debated in some quarters, the Lackses not understanding cells is hardly shocking. Nor is it surprising that they felt unable to challenge the vastly better educated doctors at Johns Hopkins.

Nonetheless, one of the most haunting passages in the book describes a conversation between a Hopkins researcher and Henrietta's husband Day. Day believed the researcher to have said that Henrietta was still alive at Johns Hopkins and being experimented on. He asked no questions of the researcher, and issued no demands. The value of both scientific literacy and a middle-class sense of entitlement is compellingly clear.

As HeLa cells made vast contributions to medical knowledge as well as large profits for medical companies (though never for Johns Hopkins), Henrietta's family remained extremely poor, often unable to afford health insurance. Resentment--and confusion--grew within the family, and Henrietta's daughter Deborah--Skloot's lead character, who became a friend to Skloot over the ten years she spent working on the book--was driven almost to a nervous breakdown.

The complex ethics of tissue donation is discussed at length. There does not seem to be a great deal of agreement, but one thing seems clear: knowledge is more important than money. What bothered the various unwitting tissue donors whom Skloot discussed was foremost that they had never been informed.

Finally, though, the family began to learn the facts surrounding HeLa. A sympathetic Austrian researcher led Deborah and her brother to a bank of freezers containing their mother's cells. Deborah warmed a vial in her hands. "You're famous," she whispered. "Just nobody knows it."

If you enjoy true medical genre, this will make your head spin. An unflinching look at the darker side of medical advancements. Shocking revelations of how men's quest for technology is used on unsuspecting humans to further knowledge of disease treatment, it's erradication, and even for weapons of war. Just as frightening is the realization that there is little or nothing that remains sacred in today's medical circles as they continue to play God. The sacrifice of another human or their body parts for the "greater good others" remains the touchstone towards immortality and supreme control of power.