On April 25, 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson publishes “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid” describing the double helix structure of DNA. Genetics, the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms, remains an impactful and yet still opaque science. Essential to that study has been HeLa, an immortal cell line used in scientific research. Immortal cell lines are populations of cells from a multicellular organism that evade normal cellular deterioration. Instead, they can keep undergoing division. HeLa has been one of the most essential of these immortal cell lines. Yet, for decades little has been known of human who these cells come from. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot pulls back the mystery of Henrietta Lacks and cells that came from Lacks’s cervical cancer cells in 1951. The books addresses medical research’s ethical issues of race and class.
Book Title: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Book Author: Rebecca Skloot
ISBN Number: 1400052173
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