If you haven’t read Rebecca Skloot’s “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” you should pick up a copy. You don’t have to take my word for it; you can read this short review, originally from the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.  The review comments on the dual nature of the book: a story of the lives of a woman and her relatives, and an examination of the nature of medical research.  For those unfamiliar with the background, Henrietta Lacks was a cancer patient whose cells were extracted and cultured, then cultured again and again so that they’re in laboratory incubators and lab freezers all over the world.

For further information visit www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

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