Reviewer praises book about cells used to create drug for herpes

NPR’s book critic Heller McAlpin recently had many good things to say about a new book that follows the life of one woman’s cancer cells, focusing on their role in curing polio and developing anti-herpes drugs.

Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks takes as its subject a black woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Before death, doctors obtained a culture of the tumor, which became the first human cell culture to grow continuously in a laboratory setting.

Since then, her cells have been cultured and multiplied to the point that millions of pounds of so-called HeLa cells exists in labs worldwide, the reviewer wrote, adding that they were instrumental in finding a cure for polio by Jonas Salk and the creation of herpes treatments.

McAlpin strongly recommended the book, saying it astutely analyzes the worlds of human clinical testing, contagions and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Today, individuals who discover through online testing services that they have herpes can receive prescription treatments for the disease due to the role HeLa cells played in STD research.

Approximately one in six Americans aged 14 to 49 has a type 2 herpes infection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.