Rebecca Skloot, author of the new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks loves HeLa cells. The cancerous cells adorn her desktop computer background, the banner image on her cell phone, and the walls of her Memphis home. "I just think they're the most beautiful things in the world," Skloot tells The Scientist. It's no wonder that Skloot has become enamored with the immortal cell line–which has been at the foundation of countless biomedical breakthroughs and discoveries in cell and molecular biology–after spending ten years rooting out the story behind the woman from whom the cells were harvested, Henrietta Lacks.
Lacks, daughter of poor Virginia tobacco farmers, died of cervical cancer in the middle of an October night in 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Only about 30 years old when she died, Lacks left behind five children, a husband, and several extended family members. But unbeknownst to her ...
