The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“This is a fascinating book on so many different levels. It is really compelling as the story of the author trying to uncover the history of the woman from whom all these cells came…For me, part of the fascination with Rebecca’s book is that it is the story about what viruses can do. The papillomavirus infects a cell in the skin or other kinds of lining in the body. But it doesn’t try to kill the cell; it actually does the opposite. It actually produces proteins that link onto the proteins in the cell and speed up its growth and division. Basically, its strategy is: If there are more host cells that are infected with the virus, that means there are more viruses.” Read more...

The best books on The Strangeness of Life

Carl Zimmer, Journalist