Book Buzz–November Newsletter
November Read
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Henrietta Lacks lived a short, tragic life. After giving birth to her fifth child in 1950 she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. During treatment, she became the involuntary donor of cancerous cells that were later cultured to become the first immortal cell line. Called the HeLa cells, they have been used around the world and have been used for cancer, AIDs and countless other research projects. The cells were used by Jonas Salk as he was developing the polio vaccine and contributed to the mapping of the human genome. There are 11,000 patents that have involved the cells in some way.
Although the HeLa cells have generated billions of dollars for the pharmaceutical industry, Lacks was not as fortunate. She at the age of 31 and is buried in an unmarked grave in Virginia.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was named one of the best books of 2010 by more than 60 critics and won'the 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize.
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