The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

This lesson plan focuses on Skloot’s use of parallel characterization to develop themes in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Students will identify and describe the author’s and Deborah Lack’s development as parallel characters, including similar conflicts they experience researching the life of Henrietta Lacks and the contribution HeLa cells make to science and medicine. By analyzing how the author and Deborah Lacks develop as parallel characters, students will be better able to describe themes in the text.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks weaves together elements of biography, memoir, science fiction, and science history. Published in 2010, the book explores the legacy of Henrietta Lacks, a woman whose cells, known as HeLa cells, have revolutionized science and medicine in the last sixty years. Rebecca Skloot’s narrative combines scientific and medical research with intimate family interviews to consider how the history of HeLa cell research raises questions about scientific progress, ethics, racism, and classism in America today.

In 1951, after the birth of her fifth child, Henrietta Lacks visits a gynecologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, because she is bleeding abnormally. She is found to have a tumor on her cervix. As is common at the time, the doctor removes a tissue sample from the tumor to use in research. Because informed consent from patients is not a commonly held standard, no one informs Henrietta or her family when her cells—later named HeLa cells, using the first two initials of her first and last names—become the first immortal cell line to reproduce in cultures in a laboratory setting.

After their discovery, HeLa cells, which do not die but continue to divide, become a critical substrate for scientific and medical advances. HeLa cells are used to study the effects of space travel and atomic weapons on the human body. They are used to develop vaccines and immunotherapy. They are used to study human cloning and organ transplantation. They are used to develop genetic sequencing and cancer treatments. The benefits HeLa cells bring to humanity, as well as the monetary profits HeLa cells bring to a number of for- profit biomedical companies, are nearly incalculable.

Meanwhile, the Lacks family struggles. Henrietta’s cells are taken and her medical records are published without permission from her or her family. After her death, while her cells multiply in labs around the world, her children experience neglect and abuse at the hands of the family and friends charged with their care. Henrietta’s descendants struggle to access education, afford healthcare, and find housing and gainful employment in and around their home city of Baltimore.

When Skloot first reaches out to Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, she is met with the distrust and suspicion that the Lacks family has towards members of the scientific community. But Skloot distinguishes herself by including Deborah and Deborah’s interests in her research and by establishing the Henrietta Lacks Foundation, an organization that provides members of the Lacks family with funds for education and medical needs.

Published to both critical and popular acclaim, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks asks students to consider the relationship between scientific progress and social justice. Contrastingly, the bond that forms between Skloot and Deborah Lacks becomes a model of trust and collaboration in a setting of injustice, suspicion, and tragedy.