她叫海瑞塔•拉克斯（Henrietta Lacks），但科学家们只知道“海拉”（HeLa）。她是美国南方的贫穷烟农，在她的黑奴祖先世代耕种的土地上生活。她患宫颈癌后，肿瘤细胞被医生取走，并成为医学史上首例经体外培养而“永生不死”的细胞，解开了癌症、病毒、核辐射如何影响人体的奥秘，促成了体外受精、克隆技术、基因图谱等无数医学突破，涉及几乎所有医学研究领域，并贡献多个诺贝尔奖。她的细胞是无价之宝，但是她的家人却毫不知情地生活在贫困中，海瑞塔•拉克斯的名字也无人知晓。当二十年后她的女儿惊闻她还“活着”时，惊恐万状、哀痛欲绝：几十年来科学家都把她关在地下室做实验吗？像《侏罗纪公园》里那样把她克隆了吗？她的细胞在核实验中被炸碎她会感到痛吗？
美国作家丽贝卡•思科鲁特耗时十年挖掘这段跨越近一个世纪的精彩历史，记述拉克斯一家如何用一生的时间来接受海拉细胞的存在，以及这些细胞永生的科学原理，揭开人体实验的黑暗过去，探讨医学伦理和身体组织所有权的法律问题，以及其中的种族和信仰问题。本书细腻地捕捉了科学发现中的动人故事，及其对个体的深远影响。本书出版之后，在外界的捐赠下，家人终于为海瑞塔树立了墓碑，碑上镌刻着“永生的海拉细胞，将永远造福人类”，对海拉细胞为人类做出的贡献进行了完美注解。
Number one New York Times best seller.
Now a major motion picture from HBO® starring Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne.
One of the “most influential” (CNN), “defining” (Lit Hub), and “best” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) books of the decade.
One of essence’s 50 most impactful Black books of the past 50 years.
Named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Financial Times, New York, Independent (UK), Times (UK), Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Globe, and Mail.
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells – taken without her knowledge – became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than 60 years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than 20 years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family – past and present – is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.
Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family – especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance? Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.
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