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Listen to full story on "All Things Considered" on NPR

Henrietta Lacks, a poor African-American woman and mother of five, never knew that she revolutionized medicine. Shortly before she died of cancer in 1951, doctors took a tissue sample from her — without her permission. Those cells became the first human cells to gain "immortality" — replicating themselves in laboratories long after Henrietta Lacks died. Host Guy Raz talks to science journalist Rebecca Skloot about her new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.