The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot · Rebecca Skloot
Narrative account of the woman whose cervical cancer cells became the HeLa line, taken without consent in 1951. Traces the family's later discovery and the consent, race, and tissue-ownership questions the case forced into medical ethics.
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More resources on Bioethics
bioethics.nih.gov
The NIH Office of Bioethics site offers policy guidance and resources on bioethics for biomedical and behavioral research. It covers topics such as informed consent, human subjects protections, and ethical analysis, and includes case studies, reports, and educational materials for researchers and the public.
thehastingscenter.org
The Hastings Center is a leading nonprofit bioethics research center focused on ethics in health care, medicine, and the life sciences. The website offers scholarly articles, policy reports, public commentary, and case studies on topics like end-of-life care, genetics, research ethics, and biomedical policy.
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics - Biotech Section
Santa Clara University's applied ethics center publishes case studies, briefing notes, and teaching materials on bioethics topics including genetic engineering, end-of-life care, and research ethics. Useful for practising structured moral reasoning on concrete clinical and biotech cases.
Genome Editing with CRISPR-Cas9
Short animation from MIT's McGovern Institute, made with Feng Zhang's lab, showing how Cas9 is guided to a DNA target, cuts both strands, and how the repair pathways enable gene knockout or insertion.
Bioethics: The Basics
An introduction to bioethics that sets out the main moral theories, then applies them to abortion, euthanasia, animal research, and public health policy. Gives a working vocabulary for arguing about medical ethics rather than settled answers.
Introduction to Bioethics
Introduction to Bioethics explores some of the most difficult - and fascinating - moral challenges we face in health, medicine, and emerging technologies.