The Institute for Systems Genomics, in collaboration with many UConn Schools, Institutes and Centers, and The Jackson Laboratory, welcomes bestselling author, Rebecca Skloot, and the Lacks Family to the University of Connecticut on Thursday, September 24, from 7:00-9:30PM in the Jorgensen Center for Performing Arts.
Rebecca Skloot is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. She has been featured on numerous television shows, including CBS Sunday Morning, The Colbert Report, Fox Business News, and others, and was named One of Five Surprising Leaders of 2010 by the Washington Post. The Immortal Life was chosen as a best book of 2010 by more than 60 media outlets, including Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, O the Oprah Magazine, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, People Magazine, New York Times, and U.S. News and World Report; it was named The Best Book of 2010 and one of the 100 Books to Read In a Lifetime by Amazon.com. The book explores issues in bioethics through the story of Henrietta Lacks, whose HeLa cells became the first and most commonly used human cell line and which have generated breakthroughs in cell biology, drug discovery, and understanding of human disease. The book also tells a story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine, of scientific discovery, and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew.
This story is central to emerging issues on the ethics of genomics and personalized medicine. Who owns our cells? What is responsible use of genetic information? How can our genetic privacy be safeguarded in an era of personalized genomics? Together, Rebecca Skloot and the Lacks family provide the most important contemporary story on the use of human cells in biological research and the numerous ethical issues that are raised by the story of Heniretta Lacks. Rebecca Skloot and the Lacks family will provide a unique opportunity for our students and community to engage the ethics of personalized medicine, a topic that is bolstered by the internationally recognized research excellence in personalized genomics at UConn-Storrs, JAX-GM, and the UConn Health Center.
This event is free and open to students, faculty, and staff. A book signing with Skloot and the Lacks family will take place immediately following the lectures.
Thank you,
Marc Lalande, Director, Institute for Systems Genomics
John Malone, Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology & Member, Institute for Systems Genomics
For more information, contact: Stephanie Holden at sholden@uchc.edu