![]() ![]() Some cells in Lacks’ tissue sample behaved differently than others. 94) Cells obtained previously from other sources would survive for only a few days. ![]() Gey “discovered that cells did something they had never seen before: They could be kept alive and grow.” (p. A subsequent partial autopsy showed that the cancer had metastasized throughout her body. In significant pain and without improvement, Lacks returned to Johns Hopkins Hospital on August 8 demanding admission and remained there until her death on October 4 at the age of 31. These cells would eventually become the HeLa immortal cell line. George Otto Gey obtained another sample of her tumor. During her second visit eight days later, Dr. Prior to the treatment for the carcinoma, cells from the tumor were removed for research purposes without her knowledge or permission, which was standard procedure at that time. The appearance of the tumor was unlike anything the examining gynecologist, Dr. After a biopsy, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Lacks visited Johns Hopkins because of a painful “knot” in her cervix and bloody vaginal discharge. The basic facts about the story of Henrietta Lacks are well documented. Skloot’s book takes the reader on an incredible journey from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to the research laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells, to Henrietta’s small, dying town of Clover, Virginia, to east Baltimore, where Henrietta’s children and grandchildren live. ![]() Members of the Lacks family were kept in the dark about the existence of the tissue line, and when its existence was revealed in a 1976 Rolling Stone article by Michael Rogers, family members were confused about how Henrietta’s cells could have been taken without consent and how they could still be alive 25 years after her death. ![]() Suspicions fueled by racial issues prevalent in the South at the time were compounded by issues of class and education. Henrietta’s husband, David Lacks, was told little following her death. In her 2010 book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot documents the histories of both the cell line-called the HeLa cell line after the first two letters of her first and last names to protect her identity-and the Lacks family. These “immortal” cells remain “alive,” 60 years after her death, revolutionizing medical research. 11.Henrietta Lacks (August 18, 1920, to October 4, 1951) was a poor Southern African-American tobacco farmer whose cancerous cervical tumor was the source of cells George Otto Gey at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland, cultured. The college is also offering an online, late-start, one-unit Book of the Year discussion class, Reading 10 beginning Monday, Sept. The committee will be collaborating with faculty, staff, students, and community members to create a series of discussion forums on the various campuses in spring semester 2018, during the week of Feb. The CR Book of the Year committee will be promoting the reading of the book in fall semester 2017, and distributing 900 books to students throughout the district. floods over you like a narrative dam break, as if someone had managed to distill and purify the more addictive qualities of Erin Brockovich, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The Andromeda Strain. Winner of several awards, including the 2010 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, the 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Award for Excellence in Science Writing, the 2011 Audie Award for Best Non-Fiction Audiobook, and a Medical Journalists’ Association Open Book Award, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was featured on over 60 critics’ best of the year lists.Ĭritic Dwight Garner of The New York Times describe the book as “One of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I’ve read in a very long time. The book is a nonfiction examination of a poor black woman whose cells, taken without her knowledge in 1951, became one of the most important tools in medicine. College of the Redwoods has named The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot as its 2017/18 Book of the Year. ![]()
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