Chap 4-5 : The name "HeLa" was derived from Henrietta Lacks by Mary Kubicek, a fresh graduate of Physiology, who was working as an assistant in George Gey's Laboratory. She used the name "HeLa" as a label for Henrietta Lacks cells she grew. George Gey was a Biologist who specialized in Culture. Gey and many researchers had been trying for years to develop a perfect cell culture, searching for liquid to get the perfect balance. Sometimes either Mary or Margret ( Gey's wife) would ran to collect umbilical cord at Hopkins Maternity Ward.
According to Skloot, the biggest problem facing cell culture at that time was contamination. She said, Bacteria and a host of other micro-organisms could find their way into cultures from people's unwashed hand, their breath, and dust particles floating through the air, and destroy them. But due to Margret profession as a Surgical Nurse, Gey Lab was able to grow cells. Because she taught Gey and his workers including Scientists who came study in the lab how to keep culture sterile.
When Henrietta lacks cells were brought into Gey Lab, they accumulated in intensity, doubling their numbers everyday as long as they had food and warmth, Henrietta's cancer cells seemed unstoppable said by Skloot.
Meanwhile, Henrietta didn't aware about her cells growing in laboratory. After she left the hospital, she went back home performed her daily route until she was seeing some signs and symptoms after some weeks of her X-ray Therapy.
Chap 6 : Skloot talked about how she was able to get in touch with Henrietta's daughter(Deborah) She was so excited for Deborah's reaction when she told her she wanted to write a book about her mother and she was able to receive as much as possible information from the 1920s to the 1990s. Also, she explained what one the Gey's student Roland Pattillo, a Professor of Gynecology said; how researchers had deceived blacks in order to study how syphilis killed from infection to death.
Chap 7: After Henrietta radiation Therapy, George Gey began to broadcast his first Immortal cells which had been growing in his lab. Explaining that his lab is using those cells to find a way to stop cancer. Gey began to ship Henrietta cells to different nations as they were ordered by many scientists across the world. upon the spread of Henrietta cells and rapid of new research, there were no news of how it might help stop cancer
Chap 8: Skloot talked about the agony and pains Henrietta went through at the Hopkins before she died. How Doctors were performing different kinds of treatments, and the experiments that George Gey carried out on the second specimen he collected. She said that black people never questioned white professional judgement in those days, they accept whatever they said because they knew that doctors know the best.
According to Skloot, there was no record that Gey ever visited Henrietta in the hospital or said anything about her cells except Laure Aurelian, a microbiologist who was Gey's colleague at Hopkins. This cells culture started on January 17, 1912 when Alexis Carrel, a fresh surgeon at Rockefeller Institute grew his Immortal chicken heart. Scientist had been trying ti grow living cells for many years.
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