The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

by Rebecca Skloot

genetic marker found only in black people, he’d called his wife during the break to ask if he was, in fact, his daughter’s father. “She assured me that my worst fears were unfounded,” Hayflick said. The room erupted in laughter, and no one said anything else publicly about Gartler’s findings. But a few people took Gartler seriously: before leaving the conference, Stevenson met several of the top cell culturists for lunch. He told them to go back to their labs after the conference and start testing cells for the G6PD-A genetic marker, to see how widespread this problem might be. Many of their cell lines tested positive, including the skin cells George Hyatt had transplanted onto a soldier’s arm years earlier. Since Hyatt had no HeLa cells in his lab at the time, the cells in his experiment must have been contaminated before they arrived. And though few realized