The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

I read this book for one of my book groups. I never would have picked it up on my own - but I found it interesting.

This is an account of cells taken from Henrietta Lacks, a woman who died at about age 31, in 1951 or so (I can't remember exactly). Henrietta had cervical cancer, which cancer then grew and spread throughout her body very rapidly, and she died in just a few months. Her cells were harvested, then used in experiments trying to reproduce cells. Her cells, known throughout the world even today as HeLa cells, took off and grew like no other cells before hers. They have been sold and used for experiments over the last 60 years.

No one in her family ever received a dime for the use of her cells. The author became interested in the cells, which led her to finding out about Henrietta, and Henrietta's children and grandchildren. This book also tells us about them. Skloot has done a good job of making the science of it all readable.

It wasn't a compelling read for me. I was ready for it to be finished about two-thirds of the way through, but as I said before, it was interesting.