77 Words: “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot

By Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett | Published: May 13, 2010

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot (Crown, 2010) -

Cells from Henrietta Lacks, a cancer patient in the 1950s, started something that seems more magical than scientific. Johns Hopkins doctors who took the cells from Lacks, a poor African American farmer, never imagined creating HeLa – the “immortal” cells grown in culture that live on and save lives around the world. This is tireless, deep reporting sensitively done and written with unusual clarity. The very talented Skloot erases the line between lab and humanity with inspiring deftness.
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One Comment

  1. Madeline Mckenzie
    Posted June 8, 2010 at 9:08 AM | Permalink

    Read this last week and loved it. Fascinating story with so many interesting angles told with “unusual clarity” indeed.

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