HeLa cells –taken from the body of a young, black wife and mother named Henrietta Lacks– have traveled to space, been used in important medical advancements such as with in vitro fertilization and the polio and COVID-19 vaccines, and have helped medical companies earn billions of dollars.
Yet when Henrietta died at age 31, she had no idea how her cells would change healthcare– or that they’d even been taken.
In this podcast, we discuss the book that brought Henrietta’s story into the spotlight, Rebecca Skloot’s “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” published in 2010, and the HBO movie that followed in 2017.
What circumstances led to Henrietta’s cells being used for medical research? How did her family find out– more than 20 years later– that Henrietta was the woman behind HeLa cells? What makes these cells so special? How did author Rebecca Skloot and Henrietta’s daughter Deborah become partners in researching the book? And what recent developments have occurred in the lives of the Lacks family?
Thank you to Jennifer G. for her top-of-the-episode shout-out!
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