More than just HeLa The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a story of realization of how the world came to where it is now. Through many different obstacles that the Lacks family had to face, their kin had made it a possibility for our world to grow. Henrietta’s cells had alternated the world we live in today. Many different situations throughout this book has shown the boundaries that had to be tarnished to produce advances into our modern medicine. Today we expect our pharmaceuticals to be able to help us through any illnesses that we may be feeling, Henrietta Lacks is the woman who unknowingly gave a piece of herself to aid mankind. Henrietta Lacks was just like you and me, but was born in a time where the world was still evolving in science as well as racial standards. She grew up poverty-stricken and led a life of it as well. In the 1920s on up African-Americans didn’t have the rights that we have today, and that is a major concept to understand throughout this book. Henrietta was just a woman seeking help to find out what she thought was a “knot” on her cervix. Going to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore Henrietta had …show more content…
When she going in a snippet of her tumor was sent to George Gey’s lab where it would be cultured to be able to grow in test tubes. Gey had been tirelessly trying to find cells that would divide continuously so scientist could experiment on human cells. From this small sample of Henrietta’s tumor it then became the holy grail for science as they figured out that her cells grew at an abnormally fast rate as well as her cancer. What is seen as cruel is the simple fact that none of the Lacks family were informed that the tissue was being sent off, nor did they realize that it would go on to be a modern medicine breakthrough. The Lacks family was left in the dust about what the scientist and researchers were doing or what they discovered all they knew is that Henrietta was