The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
sb admin | July 2, 2010
I've been working for a while to develop a Frequently Asked Questions page to answers the most common reader questions about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Well, it's now online, and it addresses questions ranging from why HeLa cells are immortal to how the Lacks family is benefiting from the book. It also includes answers to commonly asked publishing questions, like, How do I break into science writing? You can read it online here. If you have burning questions not answered there, leave them in the comments section below -- I'll add to the FAQ as questions arise and time allows.
rskloot | July 2, 2010
I've been working for a while to develop a Frequently Asked Questions page to answers the most common reader questions about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Well, it's now online, and it addresses questions ranging from why HeLa cells are immortal to how the Lacks family is benefiting from the book. It also includes answers to commonly asked publishing questions, like, How do I break into science writing? You can read it online here. If you have burning questions not answered there, leave them in the comments section below -- I'll add to the FAQ as questions arise and time allows.
sb admin | July 1, 2010A press release landed in my inbox today with this headline, which raised my eyebrows (as it was obviously intended to do): "First Experiment to Attempt Prevention of Homosexuality in Womb." It starts with this quote from Alice Dreger, a Northwestern University bioethicist: "This is the first we know in the history of medicine that clinicians are actively trying to prevent homosexuality." The release was announcing the publication of a piece at the Hastings Center Bioethics Forum titled, "Preventing Homosexuality (and Uppity Women) in the Womb? -- it was written by the same authors that…
sb admin | May 31, 2010Anyone interested in Henrietta Lacks and the grave marker finally placed on her long unmarked grave this weekend should click here immediately for a beautiful post by scientist David Kroll, who attended the unveiling ceremony. It's filled with beautiful photos of the day, and a tribute to all Henrietta's cells did for science. His photo below shows Henrietta's new headstone in much sharper detail than the one I posted yesterday with the text of the inscription. Visit his post for many more photos of the ceremony, the graveyard, and Henrietta's family.
rskloot | May 31, 2010Anyone interested in Henrietta Lacks and the grave marker finally placed on her long unmarked grave this weekend should click here immediately for a beautiful post by scientist David Kroll, who attended the unveiling ceremony. It's filled with beautiful photos of the day, and a tribute to all Henrietta's cells did for science. His photo below shows Henrietta's new headstone in much sharper detail than the one I posted yesterday with the text of the inscription. Visit his post for many more photos of the ceremony, the graveyard, and Henrietta's family.
sb admin | May 29, 2010Today is a very exciting day: Henrietta Lacks (aka HeLa) has been lying in an unmarked grave since her death in 1951. Today, thanks to Dr. Roland Pattillo at Morehouse School of Medicine, who donated a headstone after reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, her grave is finally marked. Below, a snapshot of some members of the Lacks family beside the new marker for Henrietta, and the marker for her daughter, Elsie, which was also unveiled today. Dr. Roland Pattillo is pictured at the far left:
Her stone, in case you can't tell from the picture, is shaped like a book. The text was…
rskloot | May 29, 2010Today is a very exciting day: Henrietta Lacks (aka HeLa) has been lying in an unmarked grave since her death in 1951. Today, thanks to Dr. Roland Pattillo at Morehouse School of Medicine, who donated a headstone after reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, her grave is finally marked. Below, a snapshot of some members of the Lacks family beside the new marker for Henrietta, and the marker for her daughter, Elsie, which was also unveiled today. Dr. Roland Pattillo is pictured at the far left:
Her stone, in case you can't tell from the picture, is shaped like a book. The text was…
sb admin | May 13, 2010Things have been a bit quiet here as I finished up my crazy
four-month-long book tour, and there's much to catch up on. First, some big news just in: Oprah,
Alan Ball, and HBO are going to be making a movie version of my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This news has gotten quite a bit of
coverage on Twitter and elsewhere, with me fielding questions about the movie,
and various folks voting on who should play which character in the film (not
that I have any control over such things, but it's still fun to think about).
The combination of Oprah, Alan Ball, and HBO is nothing…
rskloot | May 13, 2010Things have been a bit quiet here as I finished up my crazy
four-month-long book tour, and there's much to catch up on. First, some big news just in: Oprah,
Alan Ball, and HBO are going to be making a movie version of my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This news has gotten quite a bit of
coverage on Twitter and elsewhere, with me fielding questions about the movie,
and various folks voting on who should play which character in the film (not
that I have any control over such things, but it's still fun to think about).
The combination of Oprah, Alan Ball, and HBO is nothing…
rskloot | April 6, 2010I'm posting answers to FAQs about my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, as an ongoing series on this blog. In my last FAQ post, I told the story of how I first learned about HeLa cells at sixteen. A related question I often get has to do with this one sentence in the book's prologue:
"I was a kid who'd failed freshman year at the regular public high
school because she never showed up. I'd transferred to an alternative
school that offered dream studies instead of biology, so I was taking
Defler's class for high-school credit, which meant that I was sitting
in a college lecture hall…
sb admin | April 4, 2010I mentioned a while ago that I'll be posting answers to FAQs about my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, as an ongoing series on this blog.
I thought I'd start the FAQs with one of the most commonly asked questions: How did you learn about Henrietta and the HeLa cells, and why did they grab you the way they did? Here is the answer, which I also posted about over on Powells.com's book blog this last week as part of a little guest blogging stint:
I first learned about Henrietta Lacks in the late 80s, when I was 16 and sitting in a basic biology class at Portland Community College
(…
rskloot | April 4, 2010I mentioned a while ago that I'll be posting answers to FAQs about my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, as an ongoing series on this blog.
I thought I'd start the FAQs with one of the most commonly asked questions: How did you learn about Henrietta and the HeLa cells, and why did they grab you the way they did? Here is the answer, which I also posted about over on Powells.com's book blog this last week as part of a little guest blogging stint:
I first learned about Henrietta Lacks in the late 80s, when I was 16 and sitting in a basic biology class at Portland Community College
(…
rskloot | March 29, 2010People often ask whether the Lacks family has joined me for any of my book tour events, and how they feel about the book. Here, in the first of what will be several trailers of The Immortal Book Tour, you can see bits of the tour, including the blizzard that nearly prevented me from getting there, many great photos, footage of several Lacks family members talking about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and more (video by Mr. Culture Dish, David Prete):
rskloot | March 21, 2010As some of you may have noticed, things have been a weeeeeeee bit quiet here at Culture Dish. This is what happens when a person embarks on a totally insane book tour. I've been on the road for two months straight since the publication of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, giving talks, signing books, meeting readers, and doing lots and lots and lots of interviews for TV and radio (talking to folks like Stephen Colbert, Jim Axelrod of CBS Sunday Morning, Terry Gross, and many others). This has been a wonderful experience, which I will be posting about soon (complete with videos and…
rskloot | February 12, 2010Today's Baltimore Sun features a great OpEd by Ruth Faden, director of the bioethics institute at Johns Hopkins, exploring the ethical and moral issues raised by The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and its relevance to the current debate over health care reform. In it she says, among other things:
... Henrietta Lacks story touches the very heart of the
current debate over health care reform, and the need for universal
coverage and access to care. Her tale, like health care reform and the
ethics of biomedical science, is tied up in how the least of us live.
We need a national…
rskloot | January 31, 2010A quick post as I run out the door for the teeveey studio: Set your TiVos and your DVRs, mark your calendars: Tonight I'll be on ABC World News talking about my new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The segment will also feature members of Henrietta's family, and Vincent Racaniello with lots, and lots of HeLa cells.
ALSO: The first reviews of The Immortal Life are starting to hit newspapers. There's a terrific review on the front page of the Washington Post Outlook section today, and another great one in the St. Petersburg Times. Update: This great review just in from the…
rskloot | January 26, 2010After ten long years, the serious countdown has begun for the publication of my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which will be on sale nationwide exactly SEVEN DAYS from today. I've been posting about my impending book tour, and all the great coverage the book has been getting, on Twitter and Facebook, but thought I'd also post a bit of a press round up here, and an update, for those who (gasp) don't spend all of their time in those places.
If you don't know what my book is about: it tells the story of a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells -- taken without her knowledge…
rskloot | January 24, 2010I've been meaning to post about this for several weeks, but as we all know, things have been a weee bit hectic. But now, finally: News on the informed consent for using tissues in research front.
Since the 1960s, US law has mandated that all newborns be screened for
genetic diseases. What most people don't know is that those samples
are often stored and used in future research without the knowledge of
the parents (or, obviously, the children). I write about this in the afterward of my book, which is of course directly related to this issue.
For decades ethicists, scientists, policy makers…
rskloot | January 23, 2010Are you in New York? Anywhere near New York? If so ... mark your calendars and come join us for the PUBLIC BOOK LAUNCH EVENT we've all been waiting for (well, at least we here at Culture Dish have been waiting for it ... plus a few other folks): In an evening emceed by Jad Abumrad of RADIOLAB, I'll be talking about my new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks ... and rumor has it, some of Henrietta's family members will be there with me to answer your questions and SIGN YOUR BOOKS! Also, we will have live HeLa cells for people to see. So much excitement, we can hardly stand it. And…
rskloot | November 14, 2009
Big week here at Culture Dish! The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and its author (yours truly) were on the cover of Publishers Weekly (please note: THRILLED!). Inside that issue was a profile of me with some of book's backstory, a short excerpt from the book (longer excerpt coming soon in O, the Oprah Magazine), also a story I wrote about the crazy book tour I'm organizing (posted about previously here). But that was just the beginning of this week's HeLa developments. More about that after the jump, but first, a warning: given the fact that my book is about to be released and I'll be on…