The book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" is a captivating blend of memoir and scientific elements that tells the story of the woman whose cells have saved countless lives. Henrietta Lacks, known to scientists as HeLa, was born a poor farmer, and her cancerous tissues—taken without her knowledge—became part of a multimillion-dollar industry and one of the most important resources in medicine. Henrietta's family never learned about her 'immortality' until more than twenty years after her death, with devastating consequences. Rebecca Skloot's mesmerizing narrative is the story of the life and afterlife of a woman who forever changed the medical world. Balancing the beauty and drama of scientific discovery with dark questions about who owns the materials our bodies are made of, the book is an extraordinary journey in search of the soul and history of a real woman, whose cells live on today in every corner of the world.