Dinner & A Book - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Local Productions
- Dinner & a Book
- Economic Outlook
- Education Counts
- Experience Michiana
- Outdoor Elements
- Politically Speaking
- Raising of America
- Women in Leadership
- Beyond Bridges
- Joey D's Kitchen
- Our Town Series
- Legends Of Michiana
- Other Productions
Featured Productions
PBS Kids
State & National
- America's Heartland
- America's Test Kitchen
- American Black Journal
- American Experience
- Antiques Roadshow
- As Time Goes By
- Austin City Limits
- Baking With Julia
- Best of Sewing With Nancy
- Body Electric
- Burt Wolf: Travels & Traditions
- Christopher Kimball's Milk Street Television
- Ciao Italia
- Civilizations
- Classic Gospel
- Classical Stretch: By Essentrics
- Consuelo Mack WealthTrack
- Curious Crew
- Dinosaur Train: Nature Trackers Adventure Camp
- Ecosense for Living
- Education Counts Michiana
- Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South
- Firing Line With Margaret Hoover
- Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting
- Frontline
- Functional Fitness With Suzanne Andrews
- Garden Smart
- Great Performances
- History Detectives
- Independent Lens
- Indiana Week in Review
- Inside Indiana Business
- Islands Without Cars
- Kid Stew
- Michigan Out of Doors
- My Greek Table With Diane Kochilas
- Native Report
- NHK Newsline
- NOVA
- Off the Record
- OSIRIS Rex: Countdown to Launch
- Overheard With Evan Smith
- Paint This With Jerry Yarnell
- Painting and Travel With Roger & Sarah Bansemer
- Painting With Wilson Bickford
- Poetry in America
- Quilting Arts
- Rick Steves' Europe
- Samantha Brown's Places to Love
- Seeing Canada
- Sit and Be Fit
- Song of the Mountains
- Songs at the Center
- Steven Raichlen's Project Fire
- The American Woodshop
- The Best of the Joy of Painting
- The Kate
- The Lawrence Welk Show
- The Mystery of Chaco Canyon
- The Whitney Reynolds Show
- This American Land
- This Old House
- To the Contrary With Bonnie Erbé
- Under the Radar Michigan
- Wai Lana Yoga
- Weekends With Yankee
- Woodsmith Shop
- Yoga in Practice
Join me and my guest Linda Lucchesi for Brunswick Stew, southern Collard Greens, Sweet Potato Fries and Peanut Brittle as we discuss The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot on Dinner and a Book.
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.
Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.