Henrietta Lacks: The Mother of Modern Medicine

Henrietta Lacks: The Mother of Modern Medicine introduces young readers to the remarkable story of story of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman whose cancer cells revolutionised medical science. This book charts Henrietta’s life, from her upbringing in Virginia through to the births of her five children, before she passed away aged31 from cervical cancer. Henrietta’s cells lived on, taking from her tumour while she was undergoing surgery without her knowledge, leading to the discovery of the first ‘immortal cell line’, and giving Henrietta the name ‘the mother of modern medicine’.