Olivia: There's a part of a woman from the 1950s that's alive in labs all over the world right now. In fact, if you laid all her cells end-to-end, they’d wrap around the Earth at least three times. Jackson: Hold on, wrap around the Earth? Three times? That sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie. Are you serious? Olivia: Completely serious. And for decades, her own children had no idea. They were living in poverty, struggling to afford doctor's visits, while a piece of their mother was making medical history and generating billions of dollars. Jackson: Wow. Okay, that is an incredible and deeply unsettling hook. What book are we talking about? Olivia: We're diving into the widely acclaimed and award-winning book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. What's incredible is that Skloot, who has a background in biology, spent over a decade researching this. It wasn't just a quick project; it was a life commitment to build a deep, complex relationship with the Lacks family just to be able to tell their story. Jackson: A whole decade. That tells you how sensitive and complicated this story must be. Olivia: Exactly. And to understand this scientific miracle, you first have to understand the woman, Henrietta Lacks, and the profound tragedy behind it all.

Jackson: I think that’s the perfect place to start. I feel like I've heard the name 'HeLa cells' in a science class somewhere, but I have no idea who the person was. Who was Henrietta Lacks? Olivia: Well, that’s the core of the story. For the longest time, science didn't know either. Henrietta Lacks was a young, vibrant Black woman, a tobacco farmer from a tiny, impoverished town in Virginia called Clover. Her family and friends described her as someone who just made life come alive. She loved to dance, she painted her nails bright red, and she was fiercely devoted to her five children. Jackson: So, a real person with a full life. Not just a lab specimen. Olivia: Precisely. But in 1951, at just 31 years old, she walked into Johns Hopkins Hospital with what she called a "knot" in her womb. It was the only major hospital in the area that would treat Black patients, but it was, of course, a segregated hospital. The doctors diagnosed her with an incredibly aggressive form of cervical cancer. Jackson: And this is where the cells come in, right? Olivia: Yes. During her radium treatments—which were brutal, by the way, literally burning her from the inside out—a surgeon sliced off a piece of her tumor. He did it without her knowledge, without her consent. It was just standard practice at the time, especially for poor, Black patients who were often seen as "clinical material." Jackson: That's horrifying. They just… took a piece of her? No "hey, can we use this for research?" Olivia: Not a word. And this is a key point the book makes. It wasn't just an oversight; it was part of a systemic issue. This was the era of "benevolent deception," where doctors believed it was best not to bother or confuse patients with complex medical details. And it was also the era of the Tuskegee syphilis study, where Black men were left to die for the sake of research. So, the Lacks family's later distrust of Hopkins wasn't just paranoia; it was rooted in a very real, very painful history. Jackson: I can see that. So they take this sample. What happens next? Olivia: Well, a researcher at Hopkins, Dr. George Gey, had been trying for years to grow human cells in a lab. It was the holy grail of cancer research. Every other sample he'd tried had died within a few days. But Henrietta's cells were different. They didn't die. They doubled every 24 hours. They were, for all intents and purposes, immortal. Jackson: And Henrietta herself? What was happening to her while her cells were thriving in a lab? Olivia: That’s the most heartbreaking part of this first section of the book. While her cells were flourishing, Henrietta was suffering immensely. The cancer spread with terrifying speed. She told her cousins, "Lord, it just feels like that blackness be spreadin all inside me." She died in agony just a few months later, completely unaware that a part of her was, in a way, about to live forever. Jackson: That is an unbelievable tragedy. To have this miracle of science happening in a petri dish, while the human being it came from is going through hell. It’s a story of life and death happening at the exact same time. Olivia: Exactly. And for decades, the world only knew about the life in the petri dish. The woman, her family, her suffering—all of that was erased.

Olivia: And while Henrietta was dying, her cells were doing something no cells had ever done before. They were living. In fact, they were thriving so much they were about to create a whole new crisis for science. Jackson: A crisis? I thought they were a miracle. How do miracle cells cause a crisis? Olivia: Because they were too good at what they did: surviving and multiplying. Dr. Gey started shipping HeLa cells—named from the first two letters of Henrietta's first and last names—to labs all over the world, for free. They were instrumental in developing the polio vaccine because they were the first human cells that could be reliably grown in bulk. They were sent to space to see what would happen to human cells in zero gravity. They were used for gene mapping, cloning, in-vitro fertilization... you name a major medical breakthrough in the 20th century, and HeLa cells were probably involved. Jackson: That's incredible. So they really did change the world. Olivia: They absolutely did. But there was a huge problem nobody saw coming. HeLa cells are incredibly aggressive. They're like the ultimate biological weed. They can travel on dust particles, on unwashed hands, on lab equipment. And they would contaminate and take over other cell cultures. Jackson: Wait, what do you mean "take over"? Olivia: I mean scientists would think they were growing, say, liver cells or lung cells in a dish. They'd do years of research, publish papers, spend millions in grant money... only to find out later that their precious liver cells had been completely overrun by HeLa cells. They weren't studying liver cells at all; they were just studying Henrietta's cervical cancer cells, over and over again. Jackson: Oh my god. So, a scientist could spend their entire career studying what they thought was breast cancer, but it was actually just HeLa? Olivia: Precisely. This became known as the "HeLa Bomb." In 1966, a geneticist named Stanley Gartler stood up at a major cell culture conference and, as one scientist put it, "dropped a turd in the punch bowl." He presented evidence that 18 of the most commonly used human cell lines in the world were, in fact, all HeLa. Jackson: What was the reaction? Olivia: Total chaos and denial. People's life's work was on the line. They accused Gartler of being sloppy, of not knowing what he was talking about. But he was right. He had found a specific genetic marker, G6PD-A, which is almost exclusively found in people of African descent. All these supposed Caucasian cell lines had this marker. The evidence was undeniable. Jackson: That's wild. The very thing that made HeLa so valuable—its aggressive, unstoppable growth—also made it a scientific menace. The irony is just staggering. Olivia: It's a perfect irony. And it created a huge problem. How could scientists tell if their cultures were pure? They needed a way to definitively identify HeLa. And to do that, they needed more genetic material from the source. They needed to find Henrietta's family.

Jackson: This whole time, what did the Lacks family know about all this? Olivia: Absolutely nothing. For more than 25 years, they had no idea. They found out completely by accident in the 1970s when a family friend's brother-in-law, a researcher, mentioned working with cells from a woman named Henrietta Lacks. Bobbette, Henrietta's daughter-in-law, was stunned. She said, "Part of your mother, it’s alive!" Jackson: I can't even imagine what that must have felt like. Confusion, fear... Olivia: All of that. And it gets worse. Soon after, researchers from Johns Hopkins contacted them. But not to apologize or explain. They needed blood samples. Not to check if the Lacks children had cancer, as the family was led to believe, but to create a genetic map to help solve the HeLa contamination problem. Jackson: You're kidding me. They went back to the family, who they'd already taken from without consent, and asked for more, again under false pretenses? Olivia: That's exactly what happened. The book details the phone call where a researcher uses a stream of technical jargon that Day Lacks, Henrietta's widower, couldn't possibly understand. He just heard "cancer" and "test for the children" and agreed. There was no real informed consent. Jackson: So let me get this straight. The cells are being used in thousands of patents, they're being sold by companies for profit, they're foundational to a multi-billion dollar industry... and the family gets nothing? Not even basic information or health insurance? Olivia: Nothing. And that's the central ethical wound of the book. It's a story that parallels other cases, like the famous John Moore case, where a man sued his doctor for patenting a cell line from his spleen. The California Supreme Court ultimately ruled against him, establishing a precedent that once your tissues are removed from your body, you no longer own them. Jackson: And legally, that's okay? That just feels so wrong on a human level. Olivia: It's a huge legal and ethical gray area that we're still debating today. The book really brings this to the forefront. It's not just a historical story. It forces us to ask: Who owns our bodies? Who should profit from them? And what do we owe the people, like Henrietta, whose bodies fuel scientific progress? Jackson: It's amazing that this one woman's story contains all of these massive questions about science, race, and justice. Olivia: It really does. And Rebecca Skloot, the author, handled it with such care. After the book's success, she founded The Henrietta Lacks Foundation, which has provided scholarships and medical assistance to Henrietta's descendants. It's a small step toward rectifying a massive historical injustice.

Olivia: When you pull it all together, the story of Henrietta Lacks isn't just about immortal cells. It's about the parts of our history, especially in science and medicine, that we've tried to make invisible. It’s about a vibrant woman, a grieving family, and a scientific community that, for a long time, valued progress over people. Jackson: It’s a story with so many layers. You have the incredible scientific discovery, the personal tragedy of Henrietta, the shocking story of the contamination, and this deep, painful legacy of racial injustice. Olivia: Exactly. It forces us to ask who really benefits from scientific progress and who pays the price. The book makes it clear that for decades, the world benefited while the Lacks family paid a steep, unacknowledged price. Jackson: It really makes you think... what part of you might be out there in a lab somewhere? After a routine blood test or a biopsy. And would you even want to know? Olivia: That’s the question that lingers, isn't it? This story brings up so much, and it’s a conversation that is far from over. We'd love to hear your reactions. Join the conversation with the Aibrary community. Jackson: It’s a story that will definitely stick with you. A powerful, essential read. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.