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Rebecca Skloot is an award-winning science writer, and author of the New York Times Bestselling book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It tells the story of HeLa -- the first immortal human cell line ever grown in culture (pictured in the blog's banner) -- the woman those cells came from, and the family she left behind. The book has been featured on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, CBS Sunday Morning, The Colbert Report, and many others. To see those segments and find information, reviews, book special features, and more, visit her website. Skloot is also a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine; she's worked as a correspondent for WNYC's RadioLab, and PBS's Nova ScienceNOW. Her writing appears in The New York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, Discover and others.
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Category: Book Related
Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks FAQ page is now online, and addressing 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 writing questions, like, How do I break into science writing? You can read it online here.
Posted by Rebecca Skloot at 10:32 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: HeLa
Anyone 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 and took many photos.
Posted by Rebecca Skloot at 3:19 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Bioethics
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 for her after reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, her grave is officially marked. Photo included.
Posted by Rebecca Skloot at 4:39 PM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Bioethics
This just in: Oprah and Alan Ball will be making the movie version of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for HBO. Skloot talks about the film, speculation about actors, and why HBO is the perfect home for the HeLa movie.
Posted by Rebecca Skloot at 9:05 PM • 20 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Appearances
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 an update and press round up here, for those who (gasp) don't spend all of their time in those places.
Posted by Rebecca Skloot at 6:09 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Bioethics
Big week at Culture Dish: Skloot and "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" on the cover of Publishers Weekly; an excerpt published; early praise from Susan Orlean, Ted Conover, Eric Schlosser, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc and others; and professors respond to The Immortal Life.
Posted by Rebecca Skloot at 11:06 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Bioethics
Calling all academics: If you'd like a free advanced copy of my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, to consider it for course adoption, get thee to Random House's academic blog and request a copy quick, while supplies last (which probably won't be long at the rate things are going).
Posted by Rebecca Skloot at 9:15 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Bioethics
A federal district court has just agreed to hear the ACLU's case against the breast cancer gene patent. When the case was first filed, many legal experts were sure the case would be dismissed due to it's unusual approach: it claims that the practice of patenting genes is unconstitutional.
Posted by Rebecca Skloot at 6:23 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Bioethics
Skloot will be speaking about her new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (aka HeLa), at universities, scientific organizations, bookstores, book groups, high schools, and more as part of a grass-roots, 3-month book tour (starting 2/2/10). See her interactive tour map to help bring the story of HeLa and the ethics of tissue culture to your town.
Posted by Rebecca Skloot at 9:59 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Animals
Because of the flood of responses I got to yesterday's post on The Insanity of the FDA Approved Obesity Drug for Dogs, I thought I'd start a series of follow up posts to answer the many questions I got by email and in the comments here.
Posted by Rebecca Skloot at 9:56 AM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
