In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot introduces us to the woman behind the medical discoveries, the children who survived her, and the interplay of race, poverty, science and some of the most important medical discoveries in the last century. Henrietta Lacks, being the woman who advanced the medical field so greatly, was diagnosed with cancer in 1951. She was a 31 year-old African American woman, who worked in tobacco fields in Baltimore to support her husband and five children. Without her permisson, doctors cut tissue from her cervix and sent it to scientist, George Gey, to grow them in culture. Unlike any other, these cells, known as HeLa, continued to live and reproduce. The cells were sent to thousands of scientists globally, who all performed experiments on the cells hoping to discover vaccinations and cures for diseases and cancers.
Doctors launched a multi-milliondollar industry however, Henrietta's family had and still have not gained a cent. The Lacks' currently cannot afford health insurance even though their mother helped billions of people with her cells, which were sold in tubes for hundreds of dollars. Throughout the story, Rebecca Skloot uses Deborah as her driving force. Deborah, Henrietta Lacks' third child, takes all information to heart. She goes on a journey to discover who her mother was, why her cells were so important, and how they help people. Rebecca takes Deborah to hospitals to find her mother's hospital records and to see her cells under a microscope. Rebecca does one thing other researchers and news reporters have not; she shows that she cares about the Lacks family and just wants to help them and tell the world who their mother was.