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Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: AudiobookHub Recommendation
Chapter 2: Henrietta Lacks was a poor black American woman who died from an extremely aggressive form of cancer.
Chapter 3: Though Henrietta Lacks died from her illness, her cells – called “HeLa” – endured and flourished.
Chapter 4: To help fight diseases like polio and cancer, scientists built a factory to grow HeLa cells.
Chapter 5: Although her cells spread around the world, Henrietta and her family were mostly forgotten.
Chapter 6: After Henrietta’s death, her family fought to survive.
Chapter 7: Black Americans have a long history of deep distrust toward the medical profession.
Chapter 8: Although HeLa cells fueled many scientific discoveries, their spread endangered much research.
Chapter 9: The search to uncover more about HeLa led scientists to the Lacks family.
Chapter 10: The HeLa case is not the only instance that raised serious privacy issues in cell donation.
Chapter 11: Who owns our cells: The right to one’s own tissues vs. the right to medical research.
Description
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of a poor tobacco farmer who died from cervical cancer, and her cell strand, HeLa, which scientists used to develop a cure for polio and other diseases. In a fascinating and revealing investigation, author Rebecca Skloot uncovers the history of Henrietta and her family, of the exploitation of black Americans by the medical industry, and of Henrietta’s immortal cells.
Who Should Listen
- Anyone interested in the history of medicine
- Anyone interested in the history of the relationship between black Americans and the US medical industry