New York Times best-selling author Rebecca Skloot stopped by the University on Monday night for a lecture about her first book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.”
Henrietta Lacks, whose cells are known by scientists as “HeLa,” was an African-American tobacco farmer who worked in the southern United States.
Lacks has been dead for 60 years, but her cells have been used for nearly as long since her death. Her cancer cells, the first “immortal cells,” were extremely important for developing the polio vaccine and uncovering the secrets of cancer, among other scientific breakthroughs, according to Rebecca Skloot’s Web site. Lacks’ cells grow extremely fast and can be mass produced very easily. All of Lacks’ cells that have ever been grown would weigh more than 50 million tons if they were piled onto a scale, according to Skloot’s Web site.
Lacks’ family didn’t know of her “immortality” until 20 years after Lacks’ death, when scientists began investigating her husband and children in research without informed consent. Skloot touched on the issue of informed consent during her lecture. Nine percent of people surveyed would not give their consent to have their tissue used for scientific research after they were asked, Skloot said.
It took Skloot 10 years to write the book and get it published. She first read about Lacks when she was 16 years old.
“People are reacting to the story in the same way I did. The facts of the story are incredible,” she said. “I wanted to put a human face behind the biological sample.” Skloot’s role as an author is to give people information, not influence people, she said. “My job is to gather information and put it out there for people to talk about. It’s very complicated. What most people want at this point is information,” she said.
Laura White, Duck Store author events coordinator, helped organize the campus event. There was also an event at the downtown Eugene library Sunday, which had about 150 to 200 people in attendance. The campus event had an estimated 300 people in attendance.
Skloot has appeared on “The Colbert Report,” and her book was featured in “O Magazine.”
Laurie Drummond, assistant professor of creative writing and director of the Kidd Tutorial, helped organize the event. Drummond thinks the book touches on important issues, ranging from journalism, biology, medical ethics, history, women’s issues and racial issues.
“It seemed like a great opportunity to pull people in from across the University,” Drummond said. “The more people who hear about Lacks’ story, the better.”
Skloot began the Henrietta Lacks Foundation to raise money for Lacks’ grandchildren to go to college. Skloot is donating a portion of her book’s proceeds to the foundation.
The event was co-sponsored by the University’s Creative Writing department, Center for the Study of Women in Society, Women’s and Gender Studies, Research and Faculty Development, Institute of Molecular Biology, Department of Anthropology, Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences, and the Office for Protection of Human Subjects.
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