The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Since my current duty on the blog is sharing book reviews once in a while, here's a book that I recently read. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a fascinating non-fiction book about a cancerous cell sample taken from the tumor of a black woman back in the 50's.  These cells completely changed the face of scientific research.  Before this time, scientists were unable to keep cell samples alive for more than a few hours.  This made research on human genetics and diseases extremely difficult.  Thanks to Henrietta Lacks' robust cancer cells, which seemed almost indestructible, scientists were able to develop vaccines and understand infinitely more about human cells, diseases, etc. Who knows when the technology to keep normal cells alive would have come around!  If not for those cells, we might not have gotten a polio vaccine till much later. 

The book is interesting because it doesn't just focus on the science, (which is explained clearly and interestingly for those who aren't especially interested),  but it also focuses on Henrietta Lacks herself (known only as HeLa for many years) and her many descendants.  She had left five young children at the time of her death.  The book also focuses on research ethics, particular the rampant racism intrinsic to many scientific experiments at the time, and continuing problems in research. I promise there is something in this book that speaks to everyone, I highly recommend it!