TY  - BOOK
AU  - Skloot,Rebecca
TI  - The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
SN  - 9781400052189 (pbk.) :
AV  - RC265.6.L24 S55 2011
PY  - 2011///
CY  - New York
PB  - Broadway Paperbacks
KW  - Lacks, Henrietta,
KW  - Cancer
KW  - Patients
KW  - Virginia
KW  - Biography
KW  - African American women
KW  - History
KW  - Human experimentation in medicine
KW  - United States
KW  - HeLa cells
KW  - Research
KW  - Cell culture
KW  - Medical ethics
N1  - "Originally published in hardcover in slightly different form in the United States by Crown Publishers ... in 2010"--T.p. verso; "Guide inside"--Cover; Includes bibliographical references (p. [346]̈-366) and index
N2  - Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer and viruses; helped lead to in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks is buried in an unmarked grave. Her family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. The story of the Lacks family is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of--From publisher description
ER  -