The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Two summers ago I took my first Biology class since the 9th grade.  I signed up for Cell Biology 101 at Portland Community College with hopes of pursuing nursing school one day.  Little did I know how challenging it would be to wrap my Liberal Arts mind around science.  I survived the class by creating narrative out of nature.  The parts of the cell became a working village with various personalities and stories.  Meiosis and Mitosis became conflicts within my own personal biological novel. Things not only became easier for me to remember but delightfully enjoyable.

Perhaps I'm not a scientist at heart.  I'd much rather read the human interest stories about the people than the science itself.  Sometimes a book reaches a happy medium, a book that captures my insatiable need for story while also challenging me to scientific and ethical inquisitiveness.  Such is the case in Skloot's biography of Henrietta Lacks, a woman made famous by a few cells taken secretly from a cancerous tumor inside of her.  These rapidly multiplying cells became the famous HeLa cells which transformed scientists' understanding of how cells multiply.  Thousands of scientific books and articles have been written about HeLa cells, but very little has been written about the woman from which they came.  Skloot steps in to tell her story.

 The biography is the Number 1 book on Powell's Bestseller List and the Number 2 on the New York Times Bestseller List.  Pick up a copy at the bookstore or library and skim the Afterword (pp. 315-328).  It is a helpful essay addressing the ethical, practical, and moral dilemmas of using human tissue for scientific/medical research (often without the knowledge of the donor!).   If your interest is piqued, go back and read the story of the woman behind these famous cells.    Here is a little teaser,

...the question isn't whether human tissues and tissue research will be commercialized.  They are and will continue to be; without commercialization, companies wouldn't make the drugs and diagnostic tests so many of us depend on.  The question is how to deal with this commercialization- whether scientists should be required to tell people their tissues may be used for profit... (Skloot 322)