Rebecca Skloot writes a science blog for “Seed” magazine and has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s “Radio Lab” and PBS’s “Nova Science NOW” so the woman knows science and she knows how to tell a story. But her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, is so enthralling it kept me quickly turning pages as through it were a new “Jack Reacher” novel!

Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old black woman with five children when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951. Unbeknownst to her, during the biopsy of her tumor, they sent some of her normal cervical tissue and a slice of the cancerous tissue to George Gey, a researcher trying to culture human cells. Lacks’ cancerous tissue was the first human specimen to, not only survive, but to thrive; they became “the first immortal human cells: a continuously dividing line of cells all descended from one original sample, cells that would constantly replenish themselves and never die.” These cells, called HeLa, became the cells on which medical research around the world has been based including the polio vaccine (which was epidemic when Henrietta died); drugs used to treat herpes, leukemia, hemophilia and Parkinson’s; HIV and AIDs research; they went to the moon and were spliced to plant DNA. Her cells revolutionized medicine and the pharmaceutical industry.

But that is only part of Skloot’s story. She goes back and forth in time jumping from Henrietta’s life and the lives of her children, to early gene research and the research being done now because of the viability of the HeLa cells. And trust me when I say, though my review may seem a little dry, Skloot’s writing is anything but! She writes about a tremendously complicated subject in a way that doesn’t seem dumbed down, but instead is as alive as Henrietta’s legacy. Brilliant! ~Patti