Rebecca Skloot

“Genetically speaking, humans are terrible research subjects. We're genetically promiscuous--we mate with anyone we choose--and we don't take kindly to scientists telling…

— Rebecca Skloot

“She's the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty. If our mother is so important to science,…

— Rebecca Skloot

“I saw his broad head, with a dollop of hair on its crown, silhouetted by the stars and moon out the window…

— Rebecca Skloot

“Baltimore, looking at a genetics textbook. Her”

— Rebecca Skloot

“To discourage slaves from meeting or escaping, slave owners told tales of gruesome research done on black bodies, then covered themselves in…

— Rebecca Skloot

“Henrietta’s were different: they reproduced an entire generation every twenty-four hours, and they never stopped. They became the first immortal human cells…

— Rebecca Skloot

“Day wouldn’t have understood the concept of immortal cells or HLA markers coming from anyone, accent or not—he’d only gone to school…

— Rebecca Skloot

“Since the Common Rule says that research subjects must be allowed to withdraw from research at any time, these experts have told…

— Rebecca Skloot

“If our mother so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance?”

— Rebecca Skloot

For me, it's writing a book and telling people about this story.

— Rebecca Skloot

I learned about HeLa cells in my first basic biology class, and I just became completely obsessed with them from that point…

— Rebecca Skloot

Black patients were treated much later in their disease process. They were often not given the same kind of pain management that…

— Rebecca Skloot

Black scientists and technicians, many of them women, used cells from a black woman to help save the lives of millions of…

— Rebecca Skloot

“angry—angry that Henrietta’s cells were being sold for twenty-five dollars a vial, and angry that articles”

— Rebecca Skloot

“Whether you think the commercialization of medical research is good or bad depends on how into capitalism you are.”

— Rebecca Skloot

“Gene patents are the point of greatest concern in the debate over ownership of human biological materials, and how that ownership might…

— Rebecca Skloot

For scientists, growing cells took so much work that they couldn't get much research done. So the selling of cells was really…

— Rebecca Skloot

“They also knew that there was a string of DNA at the end of each chromosome called a telomere, which shortened a…

— Rebecca Skloot