HeLa in The New York Times, August 2013

Two years later, the 2011 First Year Book continues to make a difference as the Lacks family is finally given the power to decide the fate of Henrietta Lacks' genome.  In the article by The New York Times covering the deal made between the Lacks family and medical scientists, Dr. Eric Lander of the Broad Institute (Harvard, MIT) states the importance of creating a foundation of trust and respect with individuals and their families:

“If we are going to solve cancer, it’s going to take a movement of tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of patients willing to contribute information from their cancer genomes towards a common good,” Dr. Lander said. “We are going to need to have ways to have patients feel comfortable doing that. We can’t do it without a foundation of respect and trust.”

Read the article itself on The Times website:

A Family Consents to a Medical Gift, 62 Years Later

by CARL ZIMMER
August 7, 2013

"Jeri Lacks Whye, center, one of Henrietta Lacks’s grandchildren, with her own daughters, Jabrea, left, and Aiyana Rogers." (Photo credit nytimes.com, Monica Lopossay)