Campus Read Keynote Lecture

David “Sonny” Lacks, son of the title subject in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday, November 3, in the Student Union Simplot Ballroom. The lecture, presented by the Campus Read committee, is free and open to the public.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, known to scientists 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, gene mapping and more. Lacks’ cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t even afford health insurance.

Sonny Lacks will speak about his mother and her important contribution to modern medicine and will share what it meant to find out, decades after the fact, that his mother’s cells were being used in laboratories around the world.

For more information contact Blaine Eckles at 208-426-1583

Please visit the Campus Read Resources Guide (http://guides.boisestate.edu/henriettalacks), created by librarians at the Albertsons Library, if you would like to access additional resources that discuss the book, and also find how you can check out a copy of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

Carrie Moore,
Librarian