East NY Teacher Finds New Way To Immortalize Henrietta Lacks

EAST NEW YORK, BROOKLYN -- An East New York English teacher won a $2,000 grant so that she and her students can immortalize Henrietta Lacks in a whole new way.

Cultural Academy for the Arts And Sciences teacher Deidre DeLoatch and her students will spend the year examining the intersection where science and literature meet after the high school teacher won the 2018 Voya Unsung Heroes awards competition.

"I want the students to be able to understand science, but I also want them to debate to the issues," said DeLoatch. "I want them to understand the life of this woman, and everything that happened to her as a result of poverty."

DeLoatch's yearlong course will focus on the Rebecca Skloot's "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," which details the life of a woman manipulated for medical research and how her cancer cells changed the face of modern medicine.

When Lacks underwent surgery for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins University in 1951, researchers took a sample of her cancer cells without her permission or knowledge.

The HeLa cells were the first human cultures that were strong enough to survive in a lab, which meant doctors could use them to test vaccines and medications that have saved millions of lives.

But, as Skloot details in her book, the woman who made this monumental contribution to modern science died poor, in pain, and without any knowledge of what had been taken from her or why.

"I wanted the kids to be able to explore the bioethics," DeLoatch explained. "I want them to think about what would Henrietta Lacks say, would she be okay with what she'd done?"

Students who participate in "The Legacy of Henrietta Lacks" will learn the science behind HeLa — an immortal cell line that has since made possible the polio vaccine, the discovery of human telomerase and studies into AIDS and Leukemia — but also the ethics of biological research and the craft of writing.

The students will write poetry, conduct research and debate what it means to participate in a clinical study, DeLoatch said.

"We have people who do not take place in clinical trials, who are afraid of what might be done to them," said DeLoatch. "It's just being afraid of something and not knowing why you're afraid."

"I want them to come up with some solutions so we can get a greater participation into these clinical trials so that medications are tested with people of color in mind."

DeLoatch, whose project was chosen from a batch of more than 1,200 applicants, is one of 100 winners across the country who is know eligible to win an additional $5,000, $10,000 or $25,000 grant from Voya Financial.

She's hoping that with the extra money, she might be able to buy her class some laptops so they don't have to wait to use a shared computer room, and perhaps book a visit with the author, Rebecca Skloot.

"It would be an awesome experience if I could get her here," DeLoatch said. "I hope and pray I'll be successful in that."

Photo courtesy of Voya Finance