It culminated in Skloot’s best-selling book ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’. Rebecca Skloot, a professor at the University of Memphis has devoted 10 years telling Mrs. But, I wonder how many of us can say the name Henrietta Lacks during Breast cancer awareness month?ĭr. She was a poor, African American tobacco farmer, a mother of five children, who died of cervical cancer when she was 31.” I sort of remember Beyoncé in one of her recordings singing ‘say my name say my name’. It is a shame, because the world should know her name: Henrietta Lacks. He starts by saying “somewhere in the humble family cemetery off a country road in the town of Clover, Va, a woman who died nearly 60 years ago lies in an unmarked grave. Why have we not heard more about this female hero? A 2010 CBS documentary by Jim Axelrod attempted to make her story known. It is one of the most important cell lines in all of medical research. According to Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica, she was an African American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the Hela cell line, the very first immortalized human cell line in the world. Whew, what a sigh of relief that was.īut where did those immortal hela cells come from? They came from Henrietta Lacks. Watch the immortal life of henrietta lacks online free professional#Matter of fact, during my first job as a professional educator at Valdosta State University, one of my pupils told me to relax and not try to act as though I could decipher all knowledge. Since I am just the son of a sharecropper who grew up working on other folks’ farms, please don’t expect me to adequately explain all of this medical jargon. And that is what Henrietta Lacks did well, all of us were not exactly her friends, but we continue to benefit from her immortal contributions to life.Ī 2017 blog ( contends that hela cells are immortal, meaning they will divide again and again and again… This performance can be explained by the expression of an overactive telomerase that rebuilds telomeres after each division, preventing cellular aging and cellular senescence and allowing perpetual divisions of the cells. This tear-jerking story of an unsung hero is just as good (even better in some ways) than the best-selling book.Greater love hath no man than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends…John 15:13 NIV. Watch the immortal life of henrietta lacks online free full#Renee Elise Goldsberry's portrayal of the young Henrietta Lacks shows the vibrant life of a woman history tried to forget, but who was as full of life and caring for others in her lifetime as her cells remain to this day. When Skloot tells Deborah that "there isn't a person alive who hasn't benefited from your mother's cells," one can feel the sad irony in Deborah's mix of pride in her mom and anger that many members of the Lacks family struggled financially and with health issues. Oprah Winfrey as Deborah Lacks brings a conviction to the now-deceased Deborah that speaks volumes to the eternal relationship between mother and child. In the midst of all the wrongs, however, the uplifting parts of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks show that healing can happen in any situation, no matter how complicated. This incredible true story, medical mystery, and family drama shows how fascinating, damaging, and anger-provoking the injustices of history can be.
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