Henrietta Lacks

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who was the unwitting source of cells from her cancerous tumor, which were cultured by George Otto Gey to create an immortal cell line for medical research. This is now known as the HeLa cell line. Henrietta Lacks, n e Loretta Pleasant, was born on August 1, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia to Eliza and John Randall Pleasant I. Her family is uncertain how her name changed from Loretta to Henrietta; with Hennie as a nickname. Eliza died giving birth to her tenth child in 1924. Sometime after his wife's death, John Pleasant took the children back to where their maternal relatives lived, and they were raised there by their mother's relatives. Henrietta ended up with her grandfather in Clover, Virginia. John worked as a brakeman on the railroad