"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot

Having treasured the remarkable book about cancer ("The Emperor of All Maladies"), I now completed another remarkable book about cells ("The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks").

There are two aspects of this book worth commenting on:
(1) given that I do read a fair amount, including the above referenced book on cancer, I was struck that I had never heard of the HeLa cells (those originating from Henrietta Lacks' cancerous cervix) (and, by the way, I have written to the author of the cancer book re: his history of cancer that did not include reference to these cells);
(2) the author's ability to construct a readable and interesting narrative about the history of these cells that include her involvement with the family of Henrietta.

For those not about to read the book, the reason why her cells were so important for science and the development of treatments/vaccines, e.g., polio, is that the cells were the first ever to continue to divide endlessly in a lab setting. Most cells follow a normal path of "life", i.e., after a number of episodes of dividing, they die, as we will eventually. The HeLa cells kept going, allowing scientists to better understand the biology of cancer and also to experiment the impact on these cells by new treatments/vaccines.

The cells were taken from Henrietta during her treatment at Johns Hopkins during the early 50's, long before there was sensitivity to patient rights. Thus, she gave no consent and there was no knowledge that her cells were being distributed throughout the world to other scientists. In fact, lost to most people was even the name of the person who was the donor of the cells.

The book is one of the best.