The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Gr 9 Up–The author’s high school biology teacher mentioned the name Henrietta Lacks in a class in the 1990s, but when Skloot asked for more information, he said no one knew who she was. But her cells were famous: before she died in 1951, a doctor had put a slice of her tumor in a petri dish, and the cells, called “HeLa,” continued reproducing. They jumpstarted the field of cell biology and an industry that eventually sold her so-called immortal cells to researchers worldwide. In the whirlwind, no one looked back to acknowledge Lacks, or her family. From a young age, Skloot wondered how—and why—the scientific community left Lacks behind. By developing a deep, rich relationship with Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, Skloot broke through the family’s deep distrust of the medical profession to tell Henrietta’s story dramatically and respectfully.