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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a 2010 book that tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor Black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were taken without her consent in 1951, becoming the first "immortal" human cells (HeLa) to be grown in a lab, leading to major medical breakthroughs like the polio vaccine, while her family remained unaware and struggled financially. The book blends memoir, science, and history, exploring the life of Henrietta, the scientific importance of her cells, and the profound ethical questions about consent, race, and ownership that arose from her unwitting contribution to medicine