Rebecca is the daughter of poet, novelist and essayist Floyd Skloot. She received a BS in biological sciences and an MFA in creative nonfiction. She is a former vice president of the National Book Critics Circle. She is faculty member at the yearly Mid-Atlantic Summer Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference and has taught creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Memphis.

Skloot has published over 200 featured stories and essays. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Oprah Magazine, Discover, and New York magazine. Skloot is also a contributing editor at Popular Science and has worked as a correspondent for NPR's Radiolab and PBS's NOVA scienceNOW.

Her first book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010), is about Henrietta Lacks and the immortal cell line (known as HeLa) that came from her cancer cells.

Books

• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown/Random House, 2010)

Select articles

• Henrietta's Dance. John Hopkins Magazine. April 2000.
• An Obsession With Culture. Pitt Magazine. March 2001.
• Cells That Save Lives Are a Mother's Legacy. The New York Times. November 17, 2001.
• The Other Baby Experiment. The New York Times. February 22, 2003.
• Fixing Nemo. The New York Times. May 2, 2004.
• When Pets Attack. New York magazine. October 11, 2004.
• Taking the Least of You. The New York Times Magazine. April 16, 2006.
• Creature Comforts. The New York Times Magazine. December 31, 2008.