Bøger af Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, is now an HBO film starring Oprah Winfrey & Rose Byrne.Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Born a poor black tobacco farmer, her cancer cells - taken without her knowledge - became a multimillion-dollar industry and one of the most important tools in medicine. Yet Henrietta's family did not learn of her 'immortality' until more than twenty years after her death, with devastating consequences . . .Rebecca Skloot's fascinating account is the story of the life, and afterlife, of one woman who changed the medical world forever. Balancing the beauty and drama of scientific discovery with dark questions about who owns the stuff our bodies are made of, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an extraordinary journey in search of the soul and story of a real woman, whose cells live on today in all four corners of the world.'No dead woman has done more for the living . . . A fascinating, harrowing, necessary book.' - Hilary Mantel, Guardian

For use in schools and libraries only. Documents the story of how scientists took cells from an unsuspecting descendant of freed slaves and created a human cell line that has been kept alive indefinitely, enabling numerous medical and scientific discoveries.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "The story of modern medicine and bioethics-and, indeed, race relations-is refracted beautifully, and movingly."-Entertainment WeeklyNOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE • ONE OF THE "MOST INFLUENTIAL" (CNN), "DEFINING" (LITHUB), AND "BEST" (THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER) BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF ESSENCE'S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS • WINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NONFICTIONNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Entertainment Weekly • O: The Oprah Magazine • NPR • Financial Times • New York • Independent (U.K.) • Times (U.K.) • Publishers Weekly • Library Journal • Kirkus Reviews • Booklist • Globe and MailHer name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She 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, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.Henrietta's family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family-past and present-is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of. Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family-especially Henrietta's daughter Deborah. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn't her children afford health insurance? Intimate in feeling, 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.

Hendes navn var Henrietta Lacks, men videnskaben kendte hende som HeLa. Hun var en fattig sort tobaks arbejder, hvis celler – som blev taget uden hendes vidende i 1951 – blev et af de vigtigste redskaber i den medicinske forskning; centrale for udviklingen af polio vaccinen, kloning, kortlægning af gener osv. Henriettas celler er blevet købt og solgt i milliardvis; alligevel er hun stadig stort set ukendt, og hendes familie har ikke råd til en sundhedsforsikring. Denne fremragende New York Times-bestseller fortæller en medrivende historie om sammenstødet mellem etik, race og lægevidenskab; om videnskabelige opdagelser og troens helende kraft; om en datter, der er besat af spørgsmål om den mor, hun aldrig lærte at kende.Før Henrietta Lacks’ udødelige liv blev udgivet første gang, etablerede Rebecca Skloot Henrietta Lacks Foundation. En del af overskuddet fra denne bog doneres af forfatteren til fonden. Se HenriettaLacks-Foundation.org."Det lyder bizart. Det er bizart. Og en meget interessant og passioneret fortalt historie fra videnskabens verden. Denne bog er unputdownable." - Information