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And her other organs were so covered in small white tumours it looked as if someone had filled her with pearls.” It was perhaps the ferocity of her cancer that made the cells grow successfully in the laboratory. “Henrietta’s cells weren’t merely surviving, they were growing with mythological intensity,” writes Skloot. “Soon they were being shipped to research institutes around the world, where they enabled scientists to perform experiments that would have been impossible on a living human,” she writes. The story’s relevance to black society has also made the book particularly appealing to parts of the US public. Lacks’ story has been portrayed as an example of the mistreatment of African-Americans in the pursuit of medical science. Skloot recounts the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, in which poor and uneducated black men with the disease were recruited and then allowed to die preventable deaths while doctors lied to them and withheld penicillin so they could research the course of the disease. Chairing the judging panel of five, former barrister, comedy writer and presenter Clive Anderson said: “This is an engaging account of the life of Henrietta Lacks, who died in Baltimore nearly 60 years ago, and the immortal life of her cancer cells, which continue to replicate in research laboratories around the world to this day.” He said there are several stories to be told: “the changing attitudes and ethics of the medical profession, the economics of healthcare and the successes and slip-ups of modern scientific methods. In addition, the book reveals the human story of Henrietta Lacks’ family, who the author got to know in the course of her extensive research.” He thought it a “worthy winner of a prize designed to honour fine writing on a medical theme.” Matterson added: “It has something of everything — a compelling science story, an emotional personal story and intriguing ethical dilemmas — all woven together and written with great style.” This was the second year of the £25,000 Wellcome Trust book prize, which is open to both fiction and non-fiction on the theme of health and medicine. The short list comprised two other works of non-fiction and three novels, each giving an insight into the medical world.