Rebecca Skloot

Rebecca Skloot is an American science journalist whose debut book uncovered the untold story of Henrietta Lacks and sparked wide debate about medical ethics and race.

Rebecca Skloot spent a decade reporting The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and the result is one of the most important works of narrative non-fiction of the twenty-first century. The book tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cancer cells were taken without her knowledge in 1951 and became the HeLa cell line — one of the most consequential tools in modern medicine. Skloot weaves together science, biography, and an investigation into racial inequality in American healthcare with unusual skill, and her own presence in the narrative — developing a relationship with Henrietta’s daughter Deborah — gives the book emotional weight without undermining its rigor.

The ethical questions the book raises remain unresolved and urgent: who owns human biological material, and what do researchers owe to the families of those whose cells fuel scientific progress? Skloot doesn’t pretend to have easy answers, which makes the book more honest and more durable than a polemic would be.

It is a relatively slow read in places — the science is handled carefully, not quickly — but that deliberateness pays off. The Immortal Life is the kind of book that changes how you think about medical research and the people at the margins of it. It has been widely taught in universities for good reason.