The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Part biography, part medical history, Rebecca Skloot's true-life story of Henrietta Lacks' gift to humanity is both fascinating and well written. Lacks was a young African-American woman struggling with a virulent form of cancer in 1951 when her doctor (unbeknownst to her) harvested some of her cancer cells to use in research. Those cells, called HeLa cells, reproduced very easily and soon other researchers started requesting them. They were sent to labs all around the world and became a product of companies whose business is to provide biological samples to scientists. Unfortunately, Henrietta's family of poor and unsophisticated people were not told about all this. Suspicious of what had gone on at the hospital, they came to wonder if they had been cheated of the profits that eventually accrued to companies selling the cells. A wonderful human story.