The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks [Unabridged] [Paperback]

In 1951 human tissue culture was in its infancy, with researchers struggling to keep cells alive beyond a few cellular generations; normal cells are subject to apoptosis (programmed cellular lifespan/death)

Henrietta Lacks, a poor young black woman, was admitted to hospital in Baltimore in 1951 with an exceptionally invasive and aggressive cancer.

A standard biopsy was taken of her cancerous cells. She did not know that the biopsy would not be used purely for diagnostic purposes, but also tissues would be used for research. No consent was sought for this. In 1951 and indeed still today samples of tissue taken for diagnostic purposes can be used for other purposes - we do not own our tissues once they are no longer part of us.

Cancer cells are not subject to apoptosis. The particular aggressiveness of Henrietta Lack's cancer yielded astonishing results for tissue culture, and within a short space of time the `HeLa' cell line was being used for a wide number of medical research studies world wide, whether testing the actions of many pharmaceutical drugs or as part of the human genome project, and more.

`HeLa' has had profound, beneficial effects on probably most of us who benefit from modern medicine. HeLa has earned millions of dollars and much prestige for many predominantly white male scientists, as patents have been taken out on advances only possible through tissue culture using the HeLa line

However, Henrietta's family were unaware of the rich legacy she left the world - or the rich financial legacy reaped by institutions and individuals. In fact, they remained poor and unable to afford healthcare.

Rebecca Skloot has written an angering, compassionate and educative book, looking not only at the science made possible by HeLa - but also exposing the arrogance, hypocrisy and callousness of some individuals and establishments within scientific research. She also tells the story of Henrietta and the Lacks family - indeed, formed strong relationships with that family. Inevitably, given time and place the book is also a shameful expose of how America used its poor in unethical `research' very little different from the `research' which Mengele and others were using in concentration camps a decade or so earlier

This book pulls no punches, and may not be for those sensitive to medical issues - there are graphic descriptions of medical procedures and the ravages of terminal illness. It is, however, extraordinary.

This is without question the best non-fiction book I've read in years. Skloot's debut is thrilling, original and refuses to be shoehorned into anything as trivial as a genre. Equal parts popular science, historical biography and detective novel, it reads as evocatively as any work of fiction.

Skloot repeatedly appears as a character in her own book, narrating her journey from first hearing about HeLa cells in a classroom to her attempts to contact and support the Lacks family. Her narration reveals the trials that the Lacks family have undergone since Henrietta's cells went global, and the sheer amount of trust it took to uncover the details of this story.

But this is really a book about three heroines - the two whose names grace the cover and Henrietta's daughter, Deborah Lacks. Skloot's personal mission to tell this story and Deborah's quest to know about her mother's life and legacy are central parts of Henrietta's story and they form some of the book's most compelling segments.

I write this review as someone who isn't typically a fan of historical non-fiction. Particularly in popular science, I often find descriptions of researchers to be distracting attempts at shoehorning in a human element that is out of keeping with the rest of the book. Not so here - this work has the most human of stories at its core, and never deviates from that important, and often heartbreaking, humanity. When science appears, it does so effortlessly, with explanations of cell anatomy or techniques like "fluorescence in situ hybridization" seamlessly worked into descriptions of the coloured wards of Johns Hopkins hospital to Lacks's hometown of Clover, Virginia.

Skloot's prose is witty, lyrical, economical and authoritative. But The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is not a comfortable read. Learning about Henrietta's devastating radiation treatments, the history of experiments on black Americans and the events in the book's conclusion are heart-rending. But the story is uplifting too, particularly in a stand-out chapter where Henrietta's children, Deborah and Zakariyya, visit a cancer researcher to see their mother's cells under a microscope.

All of this is to be expected of a book that refuses to shy away from tackling important themes - the interplay between science and ethics, the question of who owns our bodies, and the history of racism in the US. Actually considering these issues seems to be too much for some people, like the anonymous reviewer who appears to be attacking a straw-man version of the book. Those who actually make the effort to read the book and heart the story will be rewarded for it.

For all its grand scope, skilful writing and touching compassion, there is one simple element that makes The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks an instant classic - this is one of those stories that genuinely needed to be told. By right, it will achieve the same immortal status as the cells it describes.

I am not a scientist and tend to mostly read non-fiction. I bought this book because it was on special offer and started to read it somewhat reluctantly. After only a few pages, however, I found myself totally gripped by the story. The author declares it to be a a work of non-fiction. It is so much more than this. It is a turns a fascinating account of a bygone era both in terms of family relations, poverty and the history of medicine. It is extremely educational for someone like me, who would have struggled to describe a cell and its functions. Although I could in no way relate to the story of Henrietta Lacks's family and their subsequent brushes with the law and dysfunctional family relationships, I thought the author wrote about them with sensitivity and understanding and, according to her account, worked hard to bridge the gaps between herself and them. I cannot rate this book highly enough.