Everyone is invited to join the Social Wave Book Club as we discuss The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells - taken in the 1950s without her knowledge and used without her consent — became one of the most important tools in medicine. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry, her family never saw any of the profits and Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave more than 60 years ago. As Rebecca Skloot shows, the story of the Lacks family - past and present - is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.