Movies That Matter - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Movies That Matter's first public presentation of the 2023-24 academic year probes one of the best known medical (and scientific) ethics issues of the not-so-distant past. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, starring Oprah Winfrey, will be shown for free to the Caltech community on October 11, 2023, at 7:00 PM in Beckman Auditorium followed by a conversation with the audience focusing on the ethical issues raised by the film led by Caltech Professor Michael Alvarez (Founding Co-Director of the new Caltech Center for Science, Society and Public Policy) and Dr. Ozan Gurcan (Postdoctoral Instructor at the Caltech Center for Science, Society and Public Policy).

Henrietta Lacks was a Black woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of Lack's daughter Deborah (Oprah Winfrey) and a journalist, the film chronicles Deborah's search to learn about the mother she never knew, and how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks' cancerous cells in 1951 led to medical breakthroughs.

Though this presentation is free to the public, registration is required for this screening.