This chapter makes a cell tissue conference sound like the most engaging thriller. And even amon them it was fairly rare” (152-3). Deborah leaves Cheatah after a lot of domestic violence.Ĭhapter 20 – 1966 – Discusses Stanley Gartler’s contention that HeLa cells were contaminants - Gartler finds “a rare genetic marker called glucose-6-phosphate dehyrdrogenase-A (G6PD-A), which was present almost exclusively in black Americans. Joe becomes Zakariyya Bari Abdul Rahman when he’s in jail. Skloot leave us with a cliffhanger: “And the PR problem for cell culture was only going to get worse from there” (143).Ĭhapter 19 – 1966-1973 – More about Deborah’s life and her youngest son’s life. Public notion of cell hybrids bordered on hysteria. Intriguing that the human cells in the hybrid eventually disappear. How can this be? Fascinating discussion of Nuremberg trials, the NIH and review boards - critical moment sin medical history - again propelled by HeLa, to a great extent.Ĭhapter 18 -1960-66 – Discusses current state of cell culture, the use of hybrids - mouse cells and HeLa cells, for instance. They don’t acknowledge relationship.Ĭhapter 17 – 1954-1966 – Chester Southam gets my vote as a villain. Chief of virology at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research - he injects so many people with HeLa cells without telling them. Discussion of race and white relatives, slave owners. Henrietta’s cousin Cliff shows Skloot where Henrietta is buried - at least, the general area, since Henrietta’s grave has no marker. Bobbette convinces Deborah to stay in school and to fight off cousins.Ĭhapter 16 – 1999 – Back to Clover. Children move to Lawrence and Bobette’s, but Galen continues to abuse Deborah. Awful abuse from Ethel, who moved into Day’s house with her husband, Galen. Result: Henrietta’s family does not know that her cells are still alive.Ĭhapter 15 – 1951-1965 – Focus on Deborah’s history. George Gey appears more a villain as he keeps Henrietta’s identity hidden.
Awful irony - Tuskegee syphilis experiments conducted at same time as HeLa cells grown at Tuskegee (97).Ĭhapter 14 – 1953-4 – Traces revealing and hiding of Henrietta’s name as donor of HeLa cells. Also underscores the huge profits made from HeLa cells and thus increases the almost surreal start of the book, when Deborah says that her family can’t afford doctors. This is a dizzying chapter - hard to keep up with everything that HeLa cells influenced: polio vaccine, cell cloning, discovery that cells have 46 (not 48) chromosomes, diagnosing genetic diseases, isolating stem cells, in vitro fertilization. HeLa cells don’t need room to grow but expand in culture until culture runs out. Underscores uniqueness of HeLa cells and the cell tissue firsts. Storm at end of chapter - presages scientific storm?Ĭhapter 13 – 1951-3 – Great title – “The HeLa Factory” - OK, I like all the chapter titles.
Gorgeously awful description here: “And her other organs were so covered in small white tumors it looked as if someone had filled her with pearls” (90). Painful to hear description of Henrietta’s body and the cancerous damage. Mary sees Henrietta’s toes and the chipped toenail polish, and for the first time, Mary realizes that HeLa cells come from a human being - someone Mary visualizes painting her toenails red. Wilbur, sews Henrietta up - after Wilbur has deposited parts of Henrietta’s organs into the petrie dishes Mary holds. It’s a story 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’re made of.Chapter 12 – 1951 – Perhaps the most significant moment of the book - Mary (Gey’s lab assistant who has been growing HeLa cells) stands next to Henrietta’s corpse as the pathologist, Dr. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine of scientific discovery and faith healing and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew.
#The immortal life of henrietta lacks chapter summary movie
Made into an HBO movie by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball, this New York Times bestseller takes readers on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers filled with HeLa cells, from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia, to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.
Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells-taken without her knowledge in 1951-became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa.
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