Human cell living and growing in dishes in labs are a vital tool in the research into causes and cures of almost every disease, and into other studies including ageing. Until 1951, scientists had never managed to get human cells to survive for long outside the body. Then a coloured woman called Henrietta Lacks was admitted to the segregated 'coloured' wards in Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore for treatment for cervical cancer. A sample taken from her tumour, without her knowledge, grew vigorously in culture, and carried on growing. Henrietta's cancer was very aggressive, and she died a few months later at the age of only 31.

This is the story of how the cells came to be cultured and grown, and some of the things they were used for. But it is more the story of Henrietta Lacks herself, and her family and what happened to them after Henrietta died. In reading this story we also learn something of the prejudices and bad treatment meted out to coloured people in the USA of the 1920s to the 1950s and later, and something of the ethics and lawsuits arising from the use of tissue samples to develop profitable treatments and diagnostics - profitable for large companies, not for the individuals whose tissues were used.

But it is also the story of how Rebecca Skloot became interested in the story, and how she spent many years researching the story and trying to win the trust of the Lacks family members. Some of this is worth telling, as it brings out the way that the researchers who took and worked with the cells, and who wanted samples from the rest of Henrietta's family for further research, took almost no trouble to inform them of what had happened to their mother's cells, why the samples were wanted, and what would be done with them. But to my mind there was rather too much of the author's research trips and dealings with Henrietta's daughter, and too much of the later lives of the Lacks family. This does not reflect well on the social security offered in today's USA, but is not really relevant to the story of the HeLa cells and Henrietta herself. I'm sure many other poor people have similar troubles, coloured or not.

But this is still a good read, and worth reading.