The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Doctors retrieved cells from Henrietta Lacks, the descendants of freed slaves, and used them to create the first immortal human cell line grown in culture-with important consequences for cancer research, in vitro developments, gene mapping, and more. But they never told her or her family.

A real detective story from science writer Skloot.

Skloot brilliantly weaves together the story of Henrietta Lacks--a woman whose cells have been unwittingly used for scientific research since the 1950s--with the birth of bioethics, and the dark history of experimentation on African Americans.

REBECCA SKLOOT is a science writer whose articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; Discover; Prevention; Glamour; and others. She has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s Radio Lab and PBS’s NOVA scienceNow, and is a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine. Her work has been anthologized in several collections, including The Best Food Writing and The Best Creative Nonfiction. She is a former vice president of the National Book Critics Circle, and has taught nonfiction in the creative writing programs at the University of Memphis and the University of Pittsburgh, and science journalism at New York University’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program. She blogs about science, life, and writing at Culture Dish, hosted by Seed magazine. This is her first book. For more information, visit her website at RebeccaSkloot.com.

A Few Words About This Book	p. ix
Prologue: The Woman in the Photograph	p. 1
Deborah's Voice	p. 9
Life
The Exam...1951	p. 13
Clover...1920- 1942	p. 18
Diagnosis and Treatment...1951	p. 27
The Birth of HeLa...1951	p. 34
"Blackness Be Spreadin All Inside"...1951	p. 42
"Lady's on the Phone"...1999	p. 49
The Death and Life of Cell Culture...1951	p. 56
"A Miserable Specimen"...1951	p. 63
Turner Station...1999	p. 67
The Other Side of the Tracks...1999	p. 77
"The Devil of Pain Itself"...1951	p. 83
Death
The Storm...1951	p. 89
The HeLa Factory...1951-1953	p. 93
Helen Lane...1953-1954	p. 105
"Too Young to Remember"...1951-1965	p. 110
"Spending Eternity in the Same Place"...1999	p. 118
Illegal, Immoral, and Deplorable...1954-1966	p. 127
"Strangest Hybrid"...1960-1966	p. 137
"The Most Critical Time on This Earth Is Now"...1966-1973	p. 144
The HeLa Bomb...1966	p. 152
Night Doctors...2000	p. 158
"The Fame She So Richly Deserves"...1970-1973	p. 170
Immortality
"It's Alive"...1973-1974	p. 179
"Least They Can Do"...1975	p. 191
"Who Told You You Could Sell My Spleen?"...1976-1988	p. 199
Breach of Privacy...1980-1985	p. 207
The Secret of Immortality...1984-1995	p. 212
After London...1996-1999	p. 218
A Village of Henriettas...2000	p. 232
Zakariyya...2000	p. 241
Hela, Goddess of Death...2000-2002	p. 250
"All That's My Mother"...2001	p. 259
The Hospital for the Negro Insane...2001	p. 268
The Medical Records...2001	p. 279
Soul Cleansing...2001	p. 286
Heavenly Bodies...2001	p. 294
"Nothing to Be Scared About"...2001	p. 297
The Long Road to Clover...2009	p. 305
Where They Are Now	p. 311
Afterword	p. 315
Acknowledgments	p. 329
Notes	p. 338
Index	p. 359
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

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