Of course, the heartiness of HeLa cells in culture and their ability to be grown in suspension, easily freeze-thawed, and shipped provided the scientific community for the very first time with a consistent and reliable tool for experimentation that revolutionized the way we do research. They named the cells HeLa, consistent with their practice of abbreviating the first and last names of the patient, and without informing her or her family put them in a dish.Īnyone who has come from a basic science laboratory knows where the story is going. Without her consent, as was commonly done in that time, doctors removed a sample of her cancerous tissue and gave it to a laboratory that had been trying for years to grow an immortalized human cell line. At that time, Hopkins was the only hospital nearby that would admit and treat African American patients. Henrietta Lacks was a 29-year-old mother when doctors at Johns Hopkins diagnosed her with aggressive cervical cancer. With this book, she presents an unforgettable story that reads like a novel. Skloot is a science journalist whose name is familiar in the corridors of my own institution, the New York Academy of Sciences, because she did freelance work for us, writing about our scientific symposia. ![]() ![]() The author, Rebecca Skloot, dedicated nearly a decade to researching the science and, perhaps more interestingly, getting to know the Lacks family. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is the astonishing biography of a poor tobacco farmer whose cells, first grown in culture in 1951, are still ubiquitous in the laboratory world today. What could I possibly learn? I assumed that a book on the subject of HeLa cells written for the general public would be beneath me. Supporting : PC, Android, Apple, Ipad, Iphone, etc.I must start off this review by admitting that although I had seen this book reviewed in publications ranging from the New York Post to Entertainment Weekly magazine and everything in between, I guessed that I, as a scientist trained in cell biology, would not enjoy it. Supporting format: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, MOBI, HTML, RTF, TXT, etc. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb?s effects helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping and have been bought and sold by the billions.Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the ?colored? ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white Book Detail : If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they?d weigh more than 50 million metric tons, as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. The first ?immortal? human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells, taken without her knowledge, became one of the most important tools in medicine. Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. ![]() Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacksīy : Rebecca Skloot Institute READ THIS BOOKĭOWNLOAD The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
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