Welcome to Bonetumor.org - The Web's most comprehensive bone tumor resource | BONETUMOR.ORG. Union for International Cancer Control. American Joint Committee on Cancer. NCCN Cancer Guidelines. GLOBOCAN. The Way of All Flesh by Adam Curtis. Saga of cancer patient whose cells advanced medical discoveries. Rebecca Skloot’s “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’’ is a book about obsession.
It begins with Skloot’s fascination with Lacks, a mother of five in Virginia in the 1950s who develops cancer, and the line of cells taken from her that unlocks the door to a number of important medical discoveries. But it also becomes the tale of a writer who embarks on a decadelong odyssey to complete her first book amid numerous obstacles and of the Lacks family, kept in the dark by an uncaring medical establishment, who desperately want to learn about Henrietta and the importance of her legacy.
Skloot first learns about Lacks in a community college biology class. Her teacher describes cell division as a choreographed dance. Embryos grow, wounds heal, but it takes only one mistake, an enzyme misfiring or a wrong protein activation, and you have cancer. Unlike other attempts to make human cells survive beyond a few days, Lacks’s cells reproduced vigorously. . © Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.