Tuesday, September 3, 2013

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Pathfinder





Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.
-From About The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on RebeccaSkloot.com


This summer, all first year students at Marist College were asked to read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.  





Librarian Nancy Lewis has created a Special Topics Pathfinder, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,  as a resource for students and Faculty working with the common reading.  This pathfinder draws together resources related to the story and the science of the HeLa cells, maps of locations in the book, as well as resources related to researching and writing about a story. A number of multimedia resources, including  a video of HeLa cells dividing are presented.

While this Pathfinder will certainly be of use to the First Year Seminars, we hope that other classes may find these resources of use and that you will direct your students to the pathfinder as well.

We hope you will also stop by and see the Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks Display in the display case on the second floor of the Library.