Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a book by Rebecca Skloot that tells the story of a woman named Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer in 1951. A few months before her death, a doctor took a small sample of her cancer cells, which became the first and most important line of human cells to survive and multiply in a laboratory setting. Her cells helped scientists make some of the most important medical advancements in history, but the cells were taken without her knowledge…

Henrietta Lack’s cells have a long and rich history that span the study of genetics. She has been a part of thousands of research projects with the hope that her cells can make a difference. One project that has used her cells in its work is the Human Genome Project. This multinational, government driven idea wanted to discover the inner-workings of the human body and how humans differ from each other by sequencing the human genome. The genome is the “instruction manual” that is “written” in the…

in order to attain enough information to write about Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cells. Skloot’s utilization of rhetorical strategies – the use of ethos, logos, and pathos – effectively engages and retains the reader in the life experience of not only Henrietta and her surroundings, but also in Skloot’s research journey on the lookout for unpublicized but highly valuable information. Skloot strived on finding and publicizing Henrietta Lacks’ life story, including those small details that…

In Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author reveals a real-life story about the life of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who was diagnosed with a fast-growing cervical cancer at a very young age. The cells retrieved from her cervical tumor, later termed “HeLa”, became the first immortal cell that could survive in the lab and replicate continuously without dying. These cells later became key components to the development of many…

been reading the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This book is about a black woman who died of a cervical cancer in 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Doctors took a cell from her cervix without any consent of her or her family. Her cells are still alive today, growing and multiplying. After this event her family will never be the same. The family discovered it more than two decades later that part of Henrietta was still alive and has been used as…

Accomplished journalism scientist, Rebecca Skloot tells the story about Henreitta Lacks, known as HeLa, “a poor black tobacco farmer who’s cells were taken without her knowledge in 1951,” writes Skloot in the prologue of her book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. “I first learned about HeLa cells and the woman behind them in 1988, thirty-seven years after her death, when I was sixteen and sitting in a community college biology class. My instructor, Donald Defler, a gnomish balding man,…

While we had been discussing and reading about the ethical, legal, and social implications of various different cases throughout the semester, reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks allowed me to see it from a whole new perspective. While I have learned quite a bit from all the discussion, the many assigned readings, and the overabundance of bioethics reference readings, this book truly carried my attention from cover to cover, pulling me into Henrietta’s family while sneakily telling me…

Victimized by the exploitation of white scientists, Henrietta Lacks’ cancerous cells were taken without her consent as she sat in John Hopkins Hospital, the very place that would mark her death. These cells would eventually revolutionize the field of medicine and save millions of lives, but they also killed Henrietta, leaving her family behind in poverty and absolute turmoil. Throughout The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot most effectively appeals to her readers through the use…

In the novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, many situations arose due to bioethical and morality issues against the patients protection and privacy. Henrietta Lacks was a thirty-one year old, African American woman who developed cervical cancer during the 1950’s. However, samples of her normal and cancerous cells were stolen from here without consent or even knowledge. Tragically, Henrietta died shortly after many chemo treatments and the malignant cancer spread to every…

In 1951, doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took cell samples from a cancer patient without her knowledge or permission. This woman, Henrietta Lacks, has been a controversial topic ever since. For years, Dr. George Gey had been trying to make human cells divide and multiply continuously, and when the cell sample that had been taken from Mrs. Lacks began to do just that, he was understandably ecstatic. Having a limitless supply of living human cells allowed doctors to test how human cells reacted…