News
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Named as one of Ten “Best Books of the Year … So Far” by Amazon
Amazon.com calls The Immortal Life one of the “must-reads of the year,” naming it one of the top ten “Best Books of the Year” to date. About the book, it said:
“For a decade, Rebecca Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of Henrietta’s story, fashioning in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a rich and haunting tale that redefines what it means to have a medical history.”
For more information, and the full list, click here.
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
Culture Dish Doesn’t Live at ScienceBlogs Anymore
As I said yesterday on Twitter, a big conflict of interest and transparency problem has arisen on ScienceBlogs. Like several other bloggers at ScienceBlogs, I’m now on a hiatus, however like like David Dobb’s, Blake Stacy’s, and others, my hiatus from ScienceBlogs will be permanent. I’ve been contemplating moving my blog from ScienceBlogs to my own site for a while for several reasons, but PepsiGate has sealed the deal for me. Several of my ScienceBlogs colleagues summed up the situation well, including PZ Myers, GrrlScientist, and Brian over at Laelaps. For a full recap of the issue and other ScienceBloggers’ responses, see this post from today’s Guardian. For a clear explanation of the ethical problems that make it so I will no longer be affiliated with Science Blogs, see this from the Knight Journalism Tracker: “ScienceBlogs Trashes its Bloggers’ Credibility.” I’m now looking for a permanent new home for my blog. In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook and via this blog which has been moved to my personal website.
UPDATE: The Guardian has just posted this letter sent to all ScienceBlogs bloggers today by Adam Bly, head of Seed Media Group and ScienceBlogs.
Update 2: See the Knight Journalism Tracker’s response to Adam Bly’s email linked above.
Update 3: ScienceBloggers have just received a note from Adam Bly saying that in response to all of this, ScienceBlogs has begun making changes to the Pepsi blog, including adding a statement about conflict of interest and funding, adding a banner labeling it as “Advertorial.”
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Rebecca Skloot Talks About How Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe and Hurricane Carter Helped Her Find the Structure of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
In a video interview on the Read and Roll show: “Skloot explains how two unlikely influences helped her shape “a rare and powerful combination of race, class, gender, medicine, bioethics, and intellectual property” (Seed magazine) into “one of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I’ve read in a very long time” (Dwight Garner, New York Times).”
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Oprah and Alan Ball to Make Film of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for HBO
Very exciting news: Oprah and Alan Ball have teamed up with HBO to create the film version of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Can you say, Dream Team??
… Ball, creator and exec producer of HBO’s “True Blood,” began pursuing the rights after he received a pre-publication copy last November while on a material-scouting mission in Gotham with his producing partner, Peter Macdissi.
“I fell in love with it,” Ball said. “I thought it would be a perfect movie for HBO.”
Harpo Films topper Kate Forte also began chasing the rights in January after reading the book. Once Ball and Forte realized they were going after the same property and had a similar vision for turning it into an HBO movie, it was a no-brainer to join forces …
Ball and Forte were effusive about how Skloot’s book easily lends itself to a screen adaptation. “It’s an incredibly visually exciting story,” Forte said. “The science of it all is told in an amazing way.”
Forte noted that Winfrey read the book in one sitting. “She couldn’t put it down,” she said.
Ball couldn’t say enough about how excited he is to work with Winfrey and Forte on such a significant project. “Immortal Life” is high on HBO Films’ priority list, given the auspices.
“This is going to be a journey that we’ll all remember for the rest of our lives,” Ball predicted.
Full story online here.
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Climbs to #2 on the New York Times Bestseller List
Very exciting news: Next week, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks will be listed as #2 on the NYT Bestseller List.
Friday, February 12th, 2010
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Debuts on The New York Times Bestseller List
Less than a week after its publication, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has hit the New York Times Bestseller List at #5!
Monday, January 25th, 2010
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in Wired: Visual Map of HeLa’s Contributions
Wired magazine has just published a piece about my book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, with this wonderful visual map showing the myriad ways in which HeLa cells have contributed to science. Have a look! Also, mark your calendars: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks hits book stores one week from today!
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Popular Science Magazine Names “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” as Its February Book of the Month
Popular Science Magazine just named The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as their book of the Month for February 2010, calling her story “remarkable,” and running this tribute: Five Reasons Henrietta Lacks is the Most Important Woman in Medical History
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Barnes and Noble Anxiously Awaits The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Today the Barnes and Noble Review posted “20 Books We’re Waiting For” in 2010, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was on it, with this nice write up:
Despite the fact that she has been dead for more than six decades, Henrietta Lacks, a poor tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave forebears, continues to make an unparalleled contribution to scientific research through her “immortal” cells (known to scientists as HeLa cells) — the first human cells grown in culture. In this extraordinary account — I’ve peeked, and couldn’t put it down — Rebecca Skloot tells the story of this unheralded woman and her unsuspecting but enduring role in the advancement of modern medicine. February 2.
Monday, October 5th, 2009
Today: Nobel Prize Awarded for Telomerase Discovery, and the 58th Anniversary of Henrietta Lacks’s Death
It’s fitting that today — the day after the 58th anniversary of Henrietta Lacks’s death — the Nobel Prize in medicine has been awarded to Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider, and Jack Szostak for the discovery of how telomeres and the enzyme telomerase protect chromosomes from degrading over time. In the late eighties, a scientist at Yale used Henrietta’s cells (aka HeLa, pictured left) to discover that human cancer cells contain telomerase, which regenerates their chromosomes and prevents them from aging and dying like normal cells. This is one of the reasons why Henrietta’s cells are still alive and growing today, fifty-eight years after her death.
A big congratulations to Elizabeth and Carol, who very patiently answered my many questions about HeLa and telomerase over the years for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks!
