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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF Website: www.RebeccaSkloot.com To view video of author at DePauw University’s Ubben Lecture, HENRIETTA LACKS go to: http://tinyurl.com/24h6xux By Rebecca Skloot Now in paperback Winner of 2010 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction Winner of 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Young Adult Science Book Award Selected as a Best Book of the Year by over 30 publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post and USA Today er name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. HShe 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 were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the effects of the atom bomb; helped lead to important advances in cloning, in vitro fertilization, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions, with devastating consequences for her family. 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 Crown | HC | 978-1-4000-5217-2 | 384pp. $26.00/$32.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $13.00 quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where Henrietta’s children, unable to afford health insurance, Do not order paperback before 3/8/2011. wrestle with feelings of pride, fear, and betrayal. Broadway | TR | 978-1-4000-5218-9 | 400pp. $16.00/$18.00 Can. | Exam Copy: $3.00 “What is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks really about? Science, African American culture and religion, intellectual property of human tissues, Southern history, medical ethics, civil rights, the overselling of medical advances? . The book’s broad scope would KEY FACTS: make it ideal for an institution-wide freshman year reading Selected for Common Reading at more than program.” 30 colleges/universities including: —David J. Kroll, Professor and Chair, Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Arkansas, University of California Santa North Carolina Central University Barbara, Morehouse College, Spelman College, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was an excellent summer Virginia Commonwealth University, and University reading selection. Over 2100 first-year students as well as faculty of Wisconsin, and others. members, research professionals, and university staff took part in Campus Visits: Author Available over 80 discussion groups during VCU’s Welcome Week. Her message inspired students to become passionate and engaged Themes: Ethics/Decision Making, Human Rights, with both learning and inquiry. Throughout their first semester, the Science & Society, Social Justice book continued to serve as an excellent model of research writing for our newest students.” Discussion Guides: Available —Daphne L. Rankin, PhD, Associate Vice Provost for Instruction, Virginia Commonwealth University Alternative Formats: Audio, eBook About the Author : Rebecca Skloot REBECCA SKLOOT has taught at the University of Memphis, New York University and the University of Pittsburgh . She has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s RadioLab and PBS’s Nova ScienceNOW , and her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; Discover; Columbia Journalism Review ; and elsewhere. 44 www.CommonReads.com.
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  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks On
    Page 8 ~ THE VILLAGER/April 14, 2017 THE DISPATCH www.theaustinvillager.com THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS ON HBO By Naomi Richard VILLAGER Columnist Because I understand the common thread and the THE IMMORTAL LIFE commonality in the hu- OF HENRIETTA LACKS pre- man experience, if I didn’t miers on HBO April 22nd know that story there’s at at 7pm CT. Oprah Winfrey least a million other and Rose Byrne star in this people who don’t know adaptation of Rebecca the story…. I could best Skloot’s critically ac- bring light to the story by claimed, bestselling non- turning it to film and tell- fiction book of the same ing people who she was… name. The film tells the When George Wolfe got true story of Henrietta involved I was on board… Lacks, an African-Ameri- He said I should definitely can woman whose cells play the role of Deborah.” were used without her THE IMMORTAL LIFE consent to create the first OF HENRIETTA LACKS immortal human cell line. brings a heart touching Told through the eyes story of the breakthrough of her daughter, Deborah in science following the Lacks (Winfrey), the film harvesting of an African- chronicles her search, Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne star in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Photo courtesy of HBO. American woman’s cells along with journalist that would change medi- Rebecca Skloot (Byrne), to cine as it was known and learn about the mother knowledge were used to for future generations. she never knew and to form the HeLa cell line.
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  • Research Bibliography
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