Oprah Winfrey is bringing another icon’s legacy to the screen as she’ll be starring in and producing the HBO film The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
The movie is based on Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman who was the progenitor of the HeLa cell line, one of the most important cell lines in medical research ever discovered.
Wikipedia details her story, stating,
“She was the unwitting donor of these cells from a cancerous tumor biopsied during treatment for her cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. in 1951. These cells were then cultured by George Otto Gey to create the cell line known as HeLa, a line which is still used for medical research.
The descendant of slaves and their white masters, Henrietta grew up in rural Virginia. After giving birth to two of their children, she married her cousin David “Day” Lacks. In 1941 the young family moved to Turner Station in Baltimore County, Maryland so Day could work in Bethlehem Steel at Sparrows Point. After Henrietta had given birth to their fifth child she was diagnosed with cancer. Tissue samples from her tumors were taken during treatment and these samples were then subsequently cultured into the HeLa cell line.
Even though some information about the origins of HeLa’s immortalized cell lines was known to researchers after 1970, the Lacks family was not made aware of the lines’ existence until 1975. In the intervening years, with knowledge of the cell lines’ genetic provenance becoming public, the usage of the cells for medical research and for commercial purposes continues to raise concerns about privacy and patients’ rights.”
The cells have been used to help bring about cures for polio as well as cancer and AIDS research.
The film is an adaptation of Rebecca Skloot’s book told from her daughter Deborah’s point of view. Oprah plays Deborah as she “searches to learn about the mother she never knew and understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks’ cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever.”
The media mogul purchased the right to the film adaptation of the book in 2010. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks airs on HBO on April 22 at 8 p.m.
Rocky Carroll, Leslie Uggams, Reg E. Cathey and Courtney B. Vance are also a few more stars who’ll be in the film. Watch the trailer below.
