The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Summary
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer whose cancer cells -- taken without her knowledge -- became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first 'immortal' human tissue grown in culture, HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the effects of the atom bomb; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta herself remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey in search of Henrietta's story, from the 'coloured' ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live, and struggle with the legacy of her cells. Full of warmth and questing intelligence, astonishing in scope and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.
Rebecca Skloot is an award-winning science writer whose articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; Discover; Prevention; Glamour; and others. She has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s Radiolab and PBS’s NOVAscienceNOW, and is a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine and guest editor of The Best AmericanScience Writing 2011. Her work has been anthologized in several collections, including The Best Creative Nonfiction. She is a former vice president of the National Book Critics Circle, and has taught creative non-fiction and science journalism at the University of Memphis, the University of Pittsburgh, and New York University. She lives in Chicago. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is her first book. It is being translated into more than twenty languages and adapted into an HBO film produced by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball. For more information, visit her website at RebeccaSkloot.com, where you’ll find links to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780230748699 |
| ISBN 10 | 0230748694 |
| Title | The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks |
| Author | Rebecca Skloot |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Pan Macmillan |
| Year published | 2010-06-04 |
| Number of pages | 384 |
| Prizes | Winner of The Wellcome Trust Book Prize 2010 (UK) |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |