...that did indeed change the world of science but took decades to surface. This intricate story is described in the award-winning book, “The Immortal of Henrietta Lacks”. Published just three years ago, Rebecca Skloot tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman, who became the source of the first line of immortal cells. Henrietta was born Loretta Pleasant in Roanoke, Virginia in 1920. Henrietta lived a typical life for a poor African American of that time - growing up on her family's tobacco farm until her mother’s death. By 1950, Henrietta had married her first cousin, David “Day” Lacks, birthed five children, and relocated to the Baltimore, Maryland area. In January of 1951, Henrietta went to the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital complaining of a “knot” in her lower abdomen. It was found that the knot feeling was due a dangerous and growing tumor in her cervix. After a formal diagnosis of cervical cancer, samples of Henrietta’s cervix were removed unbeknownst to her. The biopsy samples were given to Dr. George Gey, a tissue culture specialist. He was working on creating an immortal cell line to be used for human medical research. He discovered that Henrietta’s cells, later known as “HeLa” cells, were very unique because they grew exponentially faster than standard cell lines and never died. Henrietta Lacks died at the early age of thirty-one due to the her metastasized cancer. Interestingly, her death was just the beginning of her legacy. Knowing...
Words: 1561 - Pages: 7
...Henrietta means feminine given name. The Immortal life of Henrietta Lack talks about how African-American people were treated. Henrietta Lack’s story is about Henrietta Lack and the HeLa cells. Henrietta Lacks, an African-American liberated slave, naturally introduced a group of 10 people to Eliza Lack and Johnny Pleasant. Henrietta ended up with her grandfather and cousin David Lack at a youthful age because of money related trouble that had immersed within her family. She split a room with David and eventually got married to him. They had five children of their own. Even with five children they continued framing tobacco fields while their ancestor worked as slaves. According to the book, African American women who were diagnosed with cervical...
Words: 449 - Pages: 2
...Henrietta and the Lacks family Henrietta Lacks an Afro-American woman born August 1, 1920, in Roanoke, Virginia and later migrated to Dundalk (formerly Turner Station), Maryland. Henrietta married to her cousin David “Day” Lacks, they had five children; Lawrence, Elsie, David, Joseph (aka Zakariyyan Bari Abdul Rahman), and Deborah. In February 1951, Henrietta listened to Howard Jones, a gynecologist at John Hopkin Hospital, diagnosed her with Epidermoid Carcinoma of the Cervix Stage 1. Then eight months later, Henrietta enters into her final rest on October 4, 1951. What made her demise different from other related death, is that her cancerous cells changed medical history. Henrietta cancer cells killed her, it metastasized throughout her...
Words: 1571 - Pages: 7
...SPECIAL REPORT CRACKING THE CODE OF THE HUMAN GENOME 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) Henrietta Lacks’ ‘Immortal’ Cells Journalist Rebecca Skloot’s new book investigates how a poor black tobacco farmer had a groundbreaking impact on modern medicine By Sarah Zielinski SMITHSONIAN.COM JANUARY 22, 2010 1.3K 31 6 14 73 17 7.7K 1.3K31147367.7K Medical researchers use laboratory-grown human cells to learn the intricacies of how cells work and test theories about the causes and treatment of diseases. The cell lines they need are “immortal”—they can grow indefinitely, be frozen for decades, divided into different batches and shared among scientists. In 1951, a scientist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, created the first immortal human cell line with a tissue sample taken from a young black woman with cervical cancer. Those cells, called HeLa cells, quickly became invaluable to medical research—though their donor remained a mystery for decades. In her new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, journalist Rebecca Skloot tracks down the story of the source of the amazing HeLa cells, Henrietta Lacks, and documents the cell line's impact on both modern medicine and the Lacks family. Who was Henrietta Lacks? She was a black tobacco farmer from southern Virginia who got cervical cancer when she...
Words: 1217 - Pages: 5
...Reading “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot has identified various ethical issues. At the forefront is the disregard for patient consent when Henrietta Lacks cells are taken from her without her knowledge and sent to a lab where they grow and continuously sold to other labs all around the world. Informed consent is a patient right, however, at that time for a black woman no one thought twice about asking her permission or even informing her that samples were taken. Now looking back and think what occurred we cringe. Knowing that HeLa cells are in labs all around the world and were used in various vaccines and research without her permission is thoroughly chilling. “With Henrietta unconscious on the operating table… Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dime-sized pieces of tissue from Henrietta’s cervix” (Skloot, 2010, 33). This vivid account of the cells being taken from Henrietta’s...
Words: 686 - Pages: 3
...Henrietta Lacks was a poor black lady that worked in the plantations in the south. Without her knowledge, some cells were taken from her while she was at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951. She would become one of the “most important tools in medicine” (Skloot). Henrietta was born Loretta Pleasant on August 1, 1920, in Roanoke, Virginia. At some point she changed her name to Henrietta. When her mother had died in 1924, she was sent to live with her grandfather in a log cabin that had been slave quarters of a white ancestor’s tobacco plantation. While living there, she and her first cousin David “Day” Lacks shared a room. In 1935, they had a son, Lawrence (Skloot). Henrietta would’ve only been 14. In 1939 they had a daughter, Elsie, and married...
Words: 948 - Pages: 4
...WITH A POSSIBLE DEATH SENTENCE Testing With a Possible Death Sentence (An analysis of American mal-practice stemming from the Henrietta Lacks story) Testing with possible death sentence We can perceive past and future medical advancement through two very different lenses. One lens is clean and colorful and paints an innovative and hopeful picture of the present and future, and therefore many folks enjoy looking through it and broadcasting it. The second is foggy, dirty and colorless, and depicts a sad and appalling look at a frightening past. This perception threatens us, as the haunting past often does. Needless to say, most people choose not to look the old lens and is rather kept occult. This is probably the reason that aside from bits and pieces of unethical experiments in our part of the world, I was simply not well-educated on the subject and never expected to hear about so many terrible incidents catalyzed by one patient’s cells. The historic lens shows us that “historically, the health care institution has failed, humiliated and ruined lives in the effort to improve medicine” (Robbennolt, 2009) , and it is important for us as social workers to look through that gloomy, grim lens and envision interventions that would have prevented it from becoming so. In a twisted irony of life, one woman’s ill fate, gave way to many discoveries that have saved many lives, but unfortunately at a heavy price for others. One such story involves...
Words: 3042 - Pages: 13
...Julian Jane Atim, MBChB, MPH Uganda Health Marketing Group (UHMG) Stephanie Cantu Harvard Medical School Jonelle Wright, PhD, RN University of Miami Introduction This module consists of four (4) sections. After completing the training, you will take a short quiz on the training content. After completing the quiz, we ask you to answer a few optional questions to give your view of this training module. Learning Objectives By the end of this module, you should be able to: Describe the concept of Cultural Competence in Research Explain the importance of Cultural Competence in Research Describe ways to enhance the engagement of diverse populations and communities in research Identify cultural competence challenges faced by researchers when working with culturally diverse populations Cultural Competence in Research Culture is fundamental to everyone's perceived identity. It is a mix of one's values, beliefs, standards, norms, behaviors, language, communication styles, and thinking patterns.[1] Cultural competence refers to understanding the importance of social and cultural influence on the beliefs and behaviors of the patient, student, colleague or client.[2] Cultural competence in health care describes the ability of systems and health care professionals to provide high quality care to patients with diverse backgrounds, values, beliefs, and behaviors, including communicating effectively and tailoring delivery to meet patients' social, cultural and linguistic...
Words: 3737 - Pages: 15
...Around the World in 80 Days By Jules Verne Download free eBooks of classic literature, books and novels at Planet eBook. Subscribe to our free eBooks blog and email newsletter. CHAPTER I IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AND PASSEPARTOUT ACCEPT EACH OTHER, THE ONE AS MASTER, THE OTHER AS MAN M r. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of the most noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention; an enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that he was a polished man of the world. People said that he resembled Byron—at least that his head was Byronic; but he was a bearded, tranquil Byron, who might live on a thousand years without growing old. Certainly an Englishman, it was more doubtful whether Phileas Fogg was a Londoner. He was never seen on ‘Change, nor at the Bank, nor in the counting-rooms of the Around the World in 80 Days ‘City”; no ships ever came into London docks of which he was the owner; he had no public employment; he had never been entered at any of the Inns of Court, either at the Temple, or Lincoln’s Inn, or Gray’s Inn; nor had his voice ever resounded in the Court of Chancery, or in the Exchequer, or the Queen’s Bench, or the Ecclesiastical Courts. He certainly was not a manufacturer; nor was he a merchant or a gentleman farmer. His name was strange to the scientific and learned societies...
Words: 65314 - Pages: 262
...L3 Language Literacies Learning Harvard referencing guide UniSA This guide will help you apply the Harvard referencing style to your writing at UniSA. It is designed to help you understand the conventions and principles of this style and make decisions about referencing. There are many different versions of the Harvard style. This guide presents one consistent version for use at UniSA, which conforms to the Australian Government standard guidelines presented in Snooks & Co (eds) 2002, Style manual for authors, editors and printers, 6th edn, Wiley & Sons, Australia. Table of contents What is referencing? ......................................................................................................................... 2 How do we reference? ...................................................................................................................... 3 Sample extract from an essay ............................................................................................................ 5 What if your source does not match? ................................................................................................ 7 Harvard referencing UniSA examples ................................................................................................. 8 Print ................................................................................................................................................... 8 Book ..............................................
Words: 8716 - Pages: 35
...Bloom’s Classic Critical Views W i l l ia m Sha k e Sp e a r e Bloom's Classic Critical Views alfred, lord Tennyson Benjamin Franklin The Brontës Charles Dickens edgar allan poe Geoffrey Chaucer George eliot George Gordon, lord Byron henry David Thoreau herman melville Jane austen John Donne and the metaphysical poets John milton Jonathan Swift mark Twain mary Shelley Nathaniel hawthorne Oscar Wilde percy Shelley ralph Waldo emerson robert Browning Samuel Taylor Coleridge Stephen Crane Walt Whitman William Blake William Shakespeare William Wordsworth Bloom’s Classic Critical Views W i l l ia m Sha k e Sp e a r e Edited and with an Introduction by Sterling professor of the humanities Yale University harold Bloom Bloom’s Classic Critical Views: William Shakespeare Copyright © 2010 Infobase Publishing Introduction © 2010 by Harold Bloom All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information contact: Bloom’s Literary Criticism An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data William Shakespeare / edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom : Neil Heims, volume editor. p. cm. — (Bloom’s classic critical views) Includes bibliographical references...
Words: 239932 - Pages: 960
...A Company of Swans Chapter One There was no lovelier view in England, Harriet knew this. To her right, the soaring towers of King's College Chapel and the immaculate lawns sloping down to the river's edge; to her left, the blue and gold of the scillas and daffodils splashed in rich abundance between the trees of the Fellows' Gardens. Yet as she leaned over the stone parapet of the bridge on which she stood, her face was pensive and her feet— and this was unusual in the daughter of a professor of classics in the year 1912— were folded in the fifth position. She was a thin girl, brown-haired and brown-eyed, whose gravity and gentleness could not always conceal her questing spirit and eagerness for life. Sensibly dressed in a blue caped coat and tarn o'shanter bought to last, a leather music case propped against the wall beside her, she was a familiar figure to the passers-by: to ancient Dr. Ferguson, tottering across the willow-fringed bridge in inner pursuit of an errant Indo-Germanic verb; to a gardener trimming the edges of the grass, who raised his cap to her. Professor Morton's clever daughter; Miss Morton's biddable niece. To grow up in Cambridge was to be fortunate indeed. To be able to look at this marvelous city each day was a blessing of which one should never tire. Harriet, crumbling bread into the water for the world's most blase ducks, had told herself this again and again. But it is not cities which make the destinies of eighteen-year-old girls, it is people— and...
Words: 97572 - Pages: 391
