Wow did you hear the story of the poor black woman was used as a guinnea pig? What an awful thing to have happen to someone who was sick with cancer and instead of helping her used her body for experimentation.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot (Author)
Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 8:00 PM Royce Hall Tickets from $20 (FREE for the UCLA Community)
Award-winning science writer Rebecca Skloot’s astonishing first book has instigated a national dialogue over bioethics through the hauntingly presented tale of Henrietta Lacks, the poor Southern tobacco farmer and descendent of slaves who unknowingly launched a multimillion-dollar medical industry. Her cells—surreptitiously taken from her in the 1950s—were the first “immortal” human cells to be cultured and became vital to medical advances including curing polio, gene mapping and cancer treatment. Skloot’s bestselling work—10 years in the making—was selected as the 2011-12 UCLA Common Book, given to every incoming freshman and transfer student, who will read and participate in related activities as part of intellectual community-building programs. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, her debut book, took more than a decade to research and write, and instantly became a New York Times best-seller. She has been featured on numerous television shows, including CBS Sunday Morning, The Colbert Report, Fox Business News, and others. Named a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick for Spring 2010 and awarded the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, The Immortal Life received widespread critical acclaim, with reviews appearing in The New Yorker, Washington Post, Science, Entertainment Weekly, People, and many others. Currently, The Immortal Life is being made into an HBO movie produced by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball.
There will be a post show signing in the Royce West Lobby.
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