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The story of Henrietta Lacks , an African - American cleaning woman whose cancer cells created a seemingly " immortal " lineage that continued ten after her death , derive to the silver screen April 22 as an original movie on HBO .

A newfangled house trailer offers a glance of Lacks ' unbelievable story . The cells were harvested from a tumor without Lacks ' cognition or permission when she was undergoing treatment forcervical cancer , and they were able to do something no other cells had done before — survive and reproduce in the research laboratory .

In Brief

Rose Byrne as journalist Rebecca Skloot and Oprah Winfrey as Deborah Lacks, daughter of Henrietta Lacks, in the HBO movie “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks."

After Lacks pall of cancer in 1951 , her crime syndicate was incognizant that her cells had been taken and were being used extensively in aesculapian inquiry . Reporter Rebecca Skloot uncover the tale , write about it in her book " The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks " ( Crown Publishing Group , 2010 ) , which was the base for the film . [ ' The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks ' : Official Trailer | Video ]

While Lacks was n’t a scientist , her cell — known as HeLa prison cell — leave an unerasable crisscross in the scientific reality . HeLa cells lend to significant medical breakthroughs , including the development of the polio vaccine , and advance in in vitro fertilization , cloning and chemotherapy , according to Skloot . An estimated 20 stacks of HeLa cell have been produce since then , and they continue to multiply and get ahead research decades after her death .

Original clause onLive Science .

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Rose Byrne as journalist Rebecca Skloot and Oprah Winfrey as Deborah Lacks, daughter of Henrietta Lacks, in the HBO movie “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks."

a 3d illustration of cancer cells depicted in pink

A conceptual illustration with a gloved hand injecting a substance into a large tumor

an MRI scan of a brain

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A microscope image of Schistosoma haematobium

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A chemotherapy IV infusion

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg poses for the official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 30, 2018.

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cancer in a mouse

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