UAB Lecture to Examine the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks was a poor Virginia tobacco farmer, a descendent of slaves who died in 1951. She largely is forgotten today, except by scientists who know her as HeLa. Lacks was the unwitting donor of the first immortal human cell line grown in culture — a cell line that is still alive today.

March 26, 2010

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Henrietta Lacks was a poor Virginia tobacco farmer, a descendent of slaves who died in 1951. She largely is forgotten today, except by scientists who know her as HeLa. Lacks was the unwitting donor of the first immortal human cell line grown in culture - a cell line that is still alive today.

HeLa cells became one of the most important tools in medicine, helping to uncover the secrets of cancer, viruses and the effects of the atom bomb and also facilitating important advances in in vitro fertilization, cloning and gene-mapping. Yet there is a darker side to the story of Henrietta Lacks.

Rebecca Skloot, an author and assistant professor of English at the University of Memphis, will deliver a lecture on the HeLa cells story, based on her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as part of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Reynolds Historical Lecture series at noon on Tuesday, March 30 in the Lister Hill Library Ireland Room, 1700 University Blvd. Skloot will sign copies of her book after the lecture.

Lack's cell line was perpetuated without her knowledge, and her family did not learn of it until years after her death. The cell line is part of a multimillion-dollar industry in human biological materials, although the profits of that industry have never found their way to her family.

According to Skloot's Web site, 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 waged over control of the cells that comprise us.

The Reynolds Historical Lecture is sponsored by the UAB Historical Collections unit of Lister Hill Library. It is free and open to the public.

About UAB

The UAB Historical Collections unit of Lister Hill Library consists of the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences, the Reynolds Historical Library and UAB Archives. Known for its innovative and interdisciplinary approach to education at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, UAB is an internationally renowned research university and academic medical center and the state of Alabama's largest employer.