Summary: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of Henrietta Lack who was an African American women born in 1920 the eighth of ten children. Her mother died when she was the age of four and her father her and the rest of her siblings went to live with her father in Virginia. From there the children were distributed to several relatives as it was too much of a burden for one person to handle ten children. Henrietta lived with Tommy Lacks, her grandfather. They grew up poor in a cabin that was once used by slaves. When she moved in, Tommy Lacks was also raising Henrietta’s cousin named David also known by the name Day. Henrietta grew up working hard to make ends meet. She would wake up early each day and tend to the animals …show more content…
She attempted to grow immortal human cells in culture with all of the cell samples that came into the lab. When she attempted to culture Henrietta cells they not only survived, but they thrived and multiplied. Meanwhile, after radiation treatment doctors said Henrietta was cured, even though she complained about pain. Her suffering went on for months and most of her major organs were failing. While she was slowly dying researches were using her cells nicknamed “HeLa cells” to make several breakthroughs in medicine, including finding a vaccine for polio, cloning, and gene mapping. In Chapter 13 the widespread use of the cells were explained using this quote “The HeLa Factory…1951-1953 (set up as a massive operation to help stop polio; it would grow to produce trillions of HeLa cells each week; and it looks at the role and responsibility of African American workers at Tuskegee Institute for growing and distributing HeLa cells to fight polio). When she died the researchers also requested an autopsy to collect more of these “miracle cells”. In 1951 there were no laws governing the use of her cells without consent. To this day human tissues are still constantly collected and used for research without patient’s