HeLa & Elfaba

For the past YEAR (yes, I regret to use the word "year" in the same word as "read"...shows just how much of a slacker I am) I have been reading the book, Wicked. I have heard rants & raves about the musical, and when I was selecting some beach reading last summer I picked it up. I really want to see the musical when it comes to my area in a few months so I have been chipping away at it. I know if I don't finish it before then, I never will since I'll know what happens. Then again I already know what happens ... good witch, bad witch ... you know the drill.

However, I have put the book aside briefly to read this new book that I got last night.

Somehow I ended up on smithsonian.com and read an article about this book.** It's a non-fiction (which I don't usually go for ... the escapist inside of me goes for the fiction books) book about the life of Henrietta Lacks, the woman who has the most famous cells in the world. In 1951, a doctor biopsied her ovarian cancer and was able to replicate those cells in a laboratory. Since then, her cells (dubbed "HeLa cells" or "immortal cells") have been used in the development of the polio vaccine, for developing in vetro fertilization - heck, her cells were even sent to space to test how zero-gravity affects human cells. The thing is, she was a poor farmer's wife living in the segregated South, and her cells were taken without her knowledge or consent. It wasn't until the 1970s when her children found out about their mother's "immortal cells" being used in scientific experiments. Her family has continued to live in poverty while others have literally made millions on the HeLa cells.

The book is not only a biography about Henrietta Lacks and her family, but also a description of how her cells have been so influencial in the world of science. I have to admit, I am only about 20 pages into the book but I am very intrigued about this story - this woman. I am really looking forward to reading it because I can already tell that it's going to be a "thinker." This book is probably going to blow my mind, because cellular research isn't something that I think about every day...

So I am going to attempt to read 2 books at once. One is a book about a green woman in a mythical world, and the other is about how one very real woman unknowingly has changed the world as we know it. I hope I don't get them jumbled in my brain.

**If you are interested in reading a better synopsis of the book, here's the link to the article that made me want to read it in the first place.