The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (H/B)

Author(s): Rebecca Skloot

Science

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells-taken without her knowledge-became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons-as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the "colored" ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta's small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia-a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo-to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells. Henrietta's family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family-past and present-is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of. Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became en


Product Information

Rebecca Skloot is an award-winning science writer whose work has appeared in "The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; Discover;" and many others. She is coeditor of "The Best American Science Writing 2011 "and has worked as a correspondent for NPR's "Radiolab "and PBS's Nova "ScienceNOW." She was named one of five surprising leaders of 2010 by the" Washington Post." Skloot's debut book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, " took more than a decade to research and write, and instantly became a "New York Times "bestseller. It was chosen as a best book of 2010 by more than sixty media outlets, including "Entertainment Weekly," " People, and the New York Times." "It "is being translated into more than twenty-five languages, adapted into a young reader edition, and being made into an HBO film produced by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball. Skloot is the founder and president of The Henrietta Lacks Foundation. She has a B.S. in biological sciences and an MFA in creative nonfiction. She has taught creative writing and science journalism at the University of Memphis, the University of Pittsburgh, and New York University. She lives in Chicago. For more information, visit her website at RebeccaSkloot.com, where you'll find links to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

General Fields

  • : 9781400052172
  • : The Crown Publishing Group
  • : Random House Inc
  • : 0.621
  • : January 2010
  • : 240mm X 164mm X 37mm
  • : United States
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Rebecca Skloot
  • : Hardback
  • : English
  • : 616.02774092
  • : 369
  • : illustrations