The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks moves back and forth in time, from Henrietta Lacks's lifetime to Rebecca Skloot's investigation of Henrietta's story and the Lacks's family history. deliberate harm by doctors). Henrietta Lacks Prettiest Girl in Town. Need help with Chapter 7: The Death and Life of Cell Culture in Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks? A journalist named Rebecca Skloot recounts learning about an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks, who died in 1951 of cervical cancer, but whose cancerous cells became the first immortal human cell line, called HeLa. Rebecca Skloot documented extensive histories of both the HeLa cell line and the Lacks family in two articles published in 2000 and 2001 and in her 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Summary. Science writer Rebecca Skloot has always been obsessed with Henrietta Lacks, the African-American woman whose cancer cells were harvested and used to create an immortal cell line for scientific experimentation.Because there isn't much information about Henrietta and her family, Skloot wants to tell their story. Rebecca explains that HeLa made possible some of … voodoo) or "doctor-made" (i.e. Summary of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: by Rebecca Skloot | Includes Analysis Preview: Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, chronicles the life, death, and immortality of Henrietta Lacks, a young black woman whose cervical cancer cells became one of the most important factors in bringing about important scientific and medical advancements in the … Winner of BookBrowse's 2010 Best Book Award Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences. Since it is a biography, the central thesis of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is to discover the untold story of Henrietta Lacks. Book Summary. Scientist discover why Henrietta’s cells are immortal, they found that Telomerase was the key to cancer cell immortality. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Summary Sydney Essler. Most of what we know about Henrietta is basic stuff. A chemical found only found on cells with cancer and not normal cells. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Summary. In 1998, Adam Curtis directed a BBC documentary about Henrietta Lacks called The Way of All Flesh. She lost her mother when she was four and grew up in extreme poverty in rural segregated Virginia. Check out our revolutionary side-by-side summary and analysis. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks study guide contains a biography of Rebecca Skloot, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. In 1984 a scientist found what cause Henrietta cancer, which was human papilloma virus a virus that affect 90% of humans that are sexually active. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot has an epiphany when she speaks with cousin Gary in Clover: the devoutly religious Lacks family has a different way of viewing Henrietta's death and immortality.They see her illness not as the result of rampaging cancer cells, but as something "man-made" (i.e. For clarity, each part of this summary covers Henrietta's life story and the family's story first, followed by the story of Skloot's research. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Summary & Study Guide includes detailed chapter summaries and analysis, quotes, character descriptions, themes, and more.