Summary (Henrietta Lacks' Immortal Cells)

In the article written by Sarah Zielinski on "Henrietta Lacks' Immortal Cells", the author talked about the writer of the book "Rebecca Skloot"; how her new book study how poor black tobacco farmer had a groundbreaking impact on modern medicine. She also talked about Medical Researchers who used laboratory-grown human cells to learn the complex details of how cells work and test theories about the cause and treatment of diseases. She interviewed the author of the book "Rebecca Skloot"; how she first got interested in the story and why are Henrietta cells so important. Also, why there has been a lot of confusion over the years about the source of HeLa Cells. Sarah further in her interview by asking Rebecca how she won the trust of Henrietta's Family and when did Henrietta's Family find out about those cells. In additions, she mentioned what the writer think was the lesson from the book.

Page 137-169

Rebecca talked about how Scientist joked with HeLa cells around 1960s, and how they fused them with the mouse cells to create the first human-animal hybrids cells that contained equal amounts f DNA from Henrietta and a mouse whcih makes it possible for them to study what genes do and how they work. She also talked about Harri, a researcher who fused HeLa with chicken cells that had lost their ability to reproduce for he aimed that HeLa would turn the chicken cell back on. Some other researchers at New York University also detected that human-mouse hybrids lost their human chromosomes over time, leaving only the mouse chromosomes which allowed Scientist throughout North America and Europe to begin mapping genes to specific chromosomes.
The author also talked about how Deborah, Sonny, Lawrence spent their lives after their mother's death, to their younger brother,"Joe" who ended up in jail for several years as a result of Mudered.


Where I liked was where the author narrated the story of Henrietta's children; how Deborah was impregnated and how she was maltreated by her husband. Most especially Joe, who ended up in jail for killing Ivy. This area is very intresting because it persuaded the readers to read more in order to find out what would happen next. Not bored at all.

Class-Work

1.) When I read in English I feel  more confortable than reading in my Native Language. In my country we familiar with English than our native Language except when it comes to speaking. Though when I was in High School, I was taking Literature-English, and I read at least a book for a term.  I'm not as good as reading novel all the time.
Secondly, I often read in the bus and in the subway sometimes at work. I do fall asleep when I read at home. I like to read early in the morning especially when I wake up from sleep. And I like overnight reading.
2.) The best way to improve the class is to continnue on the vocabulary. I think that where most people have problem on.

chapter 13 -17

In the chapters, many Scientist like William Scherer a young postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota, Monroe Vincent and his partner, Samuel Reader- The owner of Microbiological associate and some association like NFIP ( The national Foundation for Infantile Paralysis), NIH (National Institute of Health) became interested in He La cells after Henrietta's death. As a result of this, NFIP created a distribution center at the Tuskegee Institute which was one of the most prestigious black Universities in the United State. They supplied He La cells to polio testing Labs and Scientists who interested in buying them, since there was no shortage of He La cells. Meanwhile, a Scientist, Dr. Salk's Jonas had developed the first polio vaccine in February 1952 which he couldn't offering to children until he tested it on a large scale to prove its effectiveness and safeness.
According to Skloot, He La Standardization happened as a result of Tuskegee mass-production. Harry Eagle at the National Institute of Health(NIH) used He La to develop the first standardized culture medium that could be made by the gallon and shipped ready for use likewise Gey and other were able to determined which glassware and test-tube were least  toxic to cells. As a matter of fact, He La cells had helped developed so many things like the number of chromosomes in normal human cells. She talked about how NFIP He La production at the Tuskegee closed down, when a Military man, Samuel Reader Established a factory called Microbiology Associates. As Reader's business grew, demand for cells from Tuskegee plumeted. This Factory were supplying Scientist all the cells they needed to the extend that Gey lose interest; he was annoyed by the widespread fixation on He La. he wrote to Scientist, trying to restrict the way they used Henrietta's cells, but nothing was done.

Skloot also talked about how the name Helen Lane was publicized to prevent from being discovered the true identity of Henrietta Lacks, a misconception that persists to this day among many researchers. she futhered in her explanations by explaining the cavalier attitude of some physicians in this period, and especially how a virologist named Chester Southam injected without any consent, patients, and Ohio state prisoners with Hela cells to see if they could  form tumors in people-something that could be in conceivable today.

Chapter 1--3

In the story written by Rebecca Skloot "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". The writer explained in the prologue how she went in search of informations about Henrietta Lacks' cells and who she was. She first became interested in Henrietta Lacks cells when she was taking Defler's class for high school credit. Skloot talked about how Henrietta Lacks spent her life right from her childhood till the time she was discovered by Dr. Jones, the gynecologist who diagnosised her tumor that she had cervical cancer.  In addition, Henrietta Lacks cells samples were collected at the Hopkins Hospital during her diagnosis treatment by Dr. Lawrence and he gave them to George Gey who usually performed experiments on every kind of cells.
According to the writer,  Henrietta Lacks cells are the only cells which were able to reproduced even up till now and those cells have been bought and sold by Billions and they are in laboratories all over the world.