It’s almost a year since it was announced that nonfiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was to be made into a movie. Oprah Winfrey was soon announced as star and producer and production started back in September. And now, we have the first trailer, and a release date for the movie and it looks like it’s going to be fantastic!
The movie is based on the 2010 nonfiction works by American author Rebecca Skloot. The book looks at the immortal ‘HeLa’ cell line that came from Henrietta Lacks cervical cancer in 1951 and tackles ethical issues of race and class in medical research.
The movie is set to air on 22nd April so if you haven’t yet read the book there is still time to do so. Here’s that first trailer:
Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who was the progenitor of the HeLa cell line, one of the most important findings in medical research ever discovered. However, Lacks wasn’t aware that she was the donor of these cells, taken from a cancerous tumour on her cervix at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland in 1951.
It would take until the late 1990s and long after Lacks death until she would receive any recognition for the contribution to science and her story would be fully known.
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