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Rebecca Skloot
Health & Medicine
Rebecca Skloot is an American science writer specializing in science and medicine, known for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Biography
Rebecca Lee Skloot was born on September 19, 1972. An American science writer, she specializes in science and medicine. Her first book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, is dated 2010 in the supplied Wikipedia account. It was among the best-selling new books of that year and remained on The New York Times bestseller list for more than six years, eventually reaching number one.
The book examines Henrietta Lacks’s cells, their importance to medical research, and the experiences of her family, bringing together questions of ethics, race, and medicine. It was adapted into a film directed by George C. Wolfe that premiered on HBO on April 22, 2017. Rose Byrne portrayed Skloot, while Oprah Winfrey played Lacks’s daughter Deborah.
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Books by Rebecca Skloot
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks traces how cells taken from a Black tobacco farmer without her knowledge in 1951 became important tools in medicine. It explores her family’s experiences alongside questions about race, medical ethics, and control over human biological material.