Donald Defler
Donald Defler, according Rebecca Skloot, was “a gnomish balding man”, who was her instructor at a community college biology class in 1988. He was the one who introduced Skloot to Henrietta Lacks. He started the whole book, in a way. He introduced the idea that HeLa cells were used in research that helped develop drugs for treating herpes, leukemia, influenza, Parkinson, hemophilia….etc to Skloot and her classmates. But perhaps the most important thing he said about Henrietta Lacks to Skloot and his students was an afterthought “She was a black woman” and then that was the end of the discussion of Henrietta Lacks in that class period.
This short discussion in class sparked Skloot’s curiosity about Henrietta Lacks. She followed Defler into his office to inquire more details about this woman who contributed so much to modern medicine. However, Defler couldn’t even answer Skloot’s various questions about Henrietta’s life because he didn’t even know. Defler planted a seed inside Skloot’s mind that kept growing after Skloot find that not a lot of information is known about Henrietta Lacks so as she grew up; she was determined to find out more about Henrietta by researching her history and family members and then putting effort into getting …show more content…
Skloot’s book is revolutionary in that it tells the story of the woman behind those cells instead of speaking just about those cells. Finding Henrietta’s family and getting them to talk to Skloot was not an easy feat as she had to earn their trust. The family was understandably guarded after all they had been through. Skloot eventually was able to show the Lacks family of her sincere purpose of writing a book about Henrietta which led them to reveal many details that Skloot used to compile her