By Rebecca Skloot. Henrietta Lacks, a poor Southern tobacco farmer, was buried in an unmarked grave sixty years ago. Yet her cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medical research. Known to science as HeLa, the first "immortal" human cells grown in culture are still alive today, and have been bought and sold by the millions while her family remained in poverty. Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey from the "colored" ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to East Baltimore today, where Henrietta's family struggles with her legacy. --Susan Orlean. Broadway (2011), English, Paperback: 400 pages.

Meet The Author: Rebecca Skloot is an award-winning science writer. She is coeditor of The Best American Science Writing 2011 and has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s Radiolab and PBS’s Nova ScienceNOW. She has a B.S. in biological sciences and an MFA in creative nonfiction. She has taught at the University of Memphis, the University of Pittsburgh, and New York University. Skloot's debut book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, took more than a decade to research and write, and instantly became a New York Times bestseller.