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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Category: Science: Medicine
Author: Rebecca Skloot
Copyright/published Year: 2011 by Broadway Paperbacks
ISBN: 1400052181
Binding: trade pap
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, which 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, 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.
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.
Condition Information
This is a used book.
Good condition.
Condition Description
Clean and unmarked copy.
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