HBO has tapped Oprah Winfrey to star in its latest biopic, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the network said Monday.

The film will chronicle the life of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line in the mid 1950s. The story will be told through the eyes of Lacks' daughter Deborah Lacks, played by Winfrey, who later this summer will star in an upcoming series, Greenleaf, on Winfrey's OWN cable channel.

Winfrey, along with Alan Ball (HBO’s True Blood, Six Feet Under), Peter Macdissi (Cinemax’s Banshee), Carla Gardini (The Hundred-Foot Journey) and Lydia Dean Pilcher (HBO’s You Don’t Know Jack) will serve as executive producers for the movie, said HBO.