Recently, Oprah Winfrey lent her star power to a made-for-cable-television adaptation of the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Winfrey plays Deborah Lacks Pullum, the daughter of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta was an African American woman who died of cancer in 1951 but lives on today.

Henrietta Lacks lives on through her genes, known as HeLa from a shortened version of her name. These genes continue to produce new cells today, more than 60 years after her death. Researchers have used these cells for decades to study cell biology and develop various treatments. HeLa genes played roles in the polio vaccine and various cancer treatments and have even been sent to space to study the effects of gravity of human cells.

For some time, Lacks’s family did not know that their loved one’s cells had played such a significant role in medical research. Before the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, most people outside the Lacks family (and various researchers) didn’t know of Lacks’s pivotal role, either.

That doesn’t diminish the magnitude of Lacks’s contribution. In this age of viral videos and camera phones, it seems that everyone can be famous for a few minutes—or, it appears that everyone wants to be famous. But unsung heroes and quiet work often gets the job done just as well (if not better) than flashier, more famous people and efforts.

Take your average 12-step program, for example. These groups, like AA and NA, often have the word anonymous as part of their names. They’re not flashy or trendy, but many people claim that the groups have helped them become sober, have helped them stay sober, or both.

It seems that society often urges us to chase the new, the different, the loudest voices, and the next big thing. But is new necessarily better? Is something better because it’s more visible, or is it just more visible? But Henrietta Lacks, 12-step groups, non 12-step treatment, and other examples demonstrate that work behind the scenes can still, well, work.