The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks was a song I’ve had in the back of my mind since my work colleague Dan Murphy pointed me towards the book of Henrietta’s life story. Performing at the Cancer Research UK summer bash gave me some impetus into making it happen, but I only had it ready a few weeks later.

Henrietta Lacks passed from Cervical Cancer a century ago and the researchers who realised her cells were unlike other cancer cells they had studied before, and could be grown for study in laboratory conditions. This was a big deal – before that cancer cells had not been growable for study, and it enabled vital research to take place. A fuller story on Wikipedia highlights the conflict of medical privacy at the time verses these advances.

Here is a first live performance of the song that tells her story, taken from the grounds of the Wellcome Genome Campus at my performance there last year.