Non-Fiction Scientific Writing reads as fiction

The Immortality of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a nonfiction book by a science writer. It is the story of an African American woman who died in the fifties of cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital. Her cancer cells were harvested for research and became the first human cells growing in a lab. Named HeLa, John Hopkins shared these cells with other research teams around the world and HeLa became the most widely used human cells used for research, eventually helping scientists develop the vaccine for polio as only the beginning of biomedical research. Skloot is revealing the woman behind the cells, her family and the medical practices of the fifties. The poor black family of Henrietta Lacks doesn't learn of the importance of her cells until the seventies. Rebecca Skloot brings the family to life in her book as she details the emotional trauma of hidden medical practices and their effect on the family. Excellent, engrossing, and remarkable reporting. Oprah has picked it up for a movie on HBO.