She was a black tobacco farmer from southern Virginia who became ill with cervical cancer when she was 30. A doctor at Johns Hopkins took a piece of her tumor without her knowledge and sent it down the hall to scientists who had tried to grow tissues in a culture for decades without success. No one knows why, but her cells never died.

Below are varying select articles from various disciplines.  From off-campus you will need to log into the library's proxy page to fully access some of these articles. For further assistance call the information desk at 610-359-5149.

Rebecca Skloot is a science writer whose first book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, took more than 10 years to research and write.  She has a B.S. in Biological Sciences and a MFA in Creative Nonfiction.

This library guide is recreated with the permission of Nastasha Johnson at  Bluford Library at North Carolina A & T State University. Used by Permission.

Customized for the Delaware County Community College reading program by Erica Swenson Danowitz, Reference Librarian.