The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

There's a photo on my wall of a woman I've never met . . . she looksstraight into the camera and smiles, hands on hips, dress suit neatly pressed,lips painted deep red . . . her name is Henrietta Lacks.Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Born apoor black tobacco farmer, her cancer cells - taken without her knowledge -became a multimillion-dollar industry and one of the most important tools inmedicine. Yet Henrietta's family did not learn of her 'immortality' until morethan twenty years after her death, with devastating consequences . . .Rebecca Skloot's fascinating account is the story of the life, andafterlife, of a woman who changed the medical world for ever. Balancing thebeauty and drama of scientific discovery with dark questions about who owns thestuff our bodies are made of, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is anextraordinary journey in search of the soul and story of a real woman, whosecells live on today in all four corners of the world.'A fascinating, harrowing, necessary book' Hilary Mantel'Remarkable . . . a vivid portrait of Lacks that should be as abiding asher cells' The Times

The internationally bestselling story of a young woman whose death in 1951 changed medical science for ever . . .