Henrietta Lacks was a poor black tobacco farmer who died in 1951 of cervical cancer. Unknown to her or her family, her cancer cells were saved and eventually used by scientists in 70 thousand ...

Henrietta Lacks' cells were essential in developing the polio vaccine and were used in scientific landmarks such as cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization. Courtesy of the Lacks family ...

If you aren’t familiar with HeLa cells, you have to pick up Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, available in paperback now. The book tells the remarkable life story of Henrietta ...

Next year will mark 75 years since the death of Henrietta Lacks, whose "immortal" HeLa cells have proved nearly indispensable to modern medicine. Their use was crucial for the development of vaccines ...