Can your cells change medical history? If you're like me, then "No" would be the assumed answer. For Henrietta Lacks, the answer would be “yes”. Today I would like to talk to you about who Henrietta Lacks was, her diagnoses and subsequent death, and the impact of her cells on modern science. I read several articles and a book about his brief life while researching this speech. You might wonder why I should know this. The answer to this question would be that your cells are important. Henrietta Lacks didn't think she was anything other than a wife and mother, but she later became known as a medical breakthrough. Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman, was born Loretta Pleasant on August 1, 1920. No one currently knows why. she changed her name to Henrietta later in her life. She was born in Roanoke, Virginia. His family was extremely poor and life was not easy for the Lacks family. After Henrietta's mothers died while giving birth to her tenth child, the family later moved to a tobacco farm in Clover, Virginia. The children were then divided up throughout the family and Henrietta was sent to live with her grandfather, Tommy Lacks, on the farm, who at the time was caring for her older cousin David Day Lacks. At the age of fourteen, she gave birth to the first of five children to her first cousin David Lacks. Education at this time was not a priority for the Lacks family. Henrietta only had a sixth grade education. Now that we have some basic information about Henrietta Lacks, let's take a look at her diagnosis and death. According to Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, “For a few months she had felt like there was a knot inside her. stomach and after the birth of her fifth child it turned out that there was a lump on him...... middle of paper ......tta Missing in all medical findings.In conclusion, Henrietta Lacks' cells lived longer outside her body than inside. Henrietta went from a small farm in Virginia with little education to fighting cervical cancer and changed the way we view science in her short life. There are many areas of his life and legacy that I could have touched on today, such as racial discrimination, moral ethics, and patients' rights, but I have chosen to simply provide an overview of the facts surrounding it. Today, there is much praise for a woman who will never know the impact she had on science. Her family, however, knows about it and is working to make sure the world knows about Henrietta Lacks. Although his life may have been short, his death may have changed the course of science. Again, can your cells change medical history? The answer should now be maybe.