Rebecca Skloot

Award-winning science writer

Rebecca Skloot is an award-winning science writer whose articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine and O, the Oprah Magazine, among others. She has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s RadioLab and PBS’s Nova Science NOW, and blogs about science, life, and writing. The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks (2010) is her debut book, and it tells the story of a woman - born a poor Southern tobacco farmer - whose cancer cells were taken without her knowledge but became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first ‘immortal’ human tissue grown in culture, HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the effects of the atom bomb; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta herself remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.