Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution

Feb 5, 2025

1h 37m

★ 0.0

Overview

The 1977 discovery of RNA splicing by Dr. Phillip A. Sharp, Kentucky farm boy turned Nobel-prize winning scientist, set the stage for a revolution in molecular biology, enabling research into a new class of medicines predicated on recombinant DNA techniques ranging from the development of synthetic insulin and human growth hormone to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Uncommon Productions

Independent Lens

Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution Trailers

Cast

Narrator (voice)

Mark Ruffalo

Self

Phillip A. Sharp

Self

Walter Isaacson

Self

Ann Sharp

Chanda Davetas

They have no roots, no seeds, no flowers, but mosses show immense survival capacities and can suspend their biological activity for long periods. Today, researchers are exploring the exceptional resistance of these archaic organisms. British ecologists have even resurrected a "zombie" moss that has been trapped in the permafrost for 1,500 years. Associated with decay and disliked in Europe, mosses are deified in Japan. With 25,000 species worldwide, bryophytes - their scientific name - are the seat of real ecosystems, and can develop in inhospitable landscapes, through an extravagant reproduction cycle.

7.0

Hawking: Can You Hear Me?

Sep 20, 2021

A documentary telling the remarkable human story of Stephen Hawking. For the first time, the personal archives and the testimonies of his closest family reveal both the scale of Hawking's triumphs and the real cost of his disability and success.

7.5

The Enemies of Reason

Jan 1, 2007

Documentary written and presented by scientist Richard Dawkins, in which he seeks to expose "those areas of belief that exist without scientific proof, yet manage to hold the nation under their spell", including mediumship, psychokinesis, acupuncture, and other forms of alternative medicine.

7.6

Microcosmos

Sep 6, 1996

A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.

0.0

Testerep

Mar 21, 2024

A team of scientists search for the lost island of Testerep in front of the Belgian coast, venturing into artificial landscapes and virtual realities.

3.5

Free Will

Mar 26, 2022

An in-depth investigation featuring world renowned philosophers and scientists into the most profound philosophical debate of all time: Do we have free will?

10.0

Cosmic Dawn

Jun 11, 2025

For over three decades, NASA and an international team of scientists and engineers pushed the limits of technology, innovation, and perseverance to build and launch the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful space observatory ever created. Cosmic Dawn brings audiences behind the scenes with the Webb film crew, and never-before-heard testimonies revealing the real story of how this telescope overcame all odds.

6.0

WEED

Jan 23, 1971

This 1971 color anti-drug use and abuse film was produced by Concept Films and directed by Brian Kellman for Encyclopedia Britannica. “Weed: The Story of Marijuana” combines time-lapse, montage, illustrations, animation (by Paul Fierlinger and emigre Pavel Vošický) and dramatized, documentary-style interviews to survey the evolving role of cannabis in U.S. society, with emphasis on the legal risks faced by young people. A unique score of experimental synthesizer music is provided by Tony Luisi on an EMS VCS 3 “Putney”

0.0

The Frog

Feb 24, 1931

An educational film about frogs produced by Encyclopædia Britannica Films, an educational film production company in the 20th century owned by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc.

7.4

Sicko

May 18, 2007

A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States who's main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.

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8.2

Counterfeit Culture

Jan 1, 2013

A documentary that explores the dangerous and sometimes deadly world of fake products. An industry that once dealt in imitation designer handbags and shoes has exploded into a global epidemic of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, foods, toys, electronic goods, car parts and microchips. COUNTERFEIT CULTURE challenges consumers to take a deeper look at what appears to be harmless knock-offs at bargain prices.

0.0

Voices from the Shadows

Invalid Date

‘Voices from the Shadows’ shows the brave and sometimes heartrending stories of five ME patients and their carers, along with input from Dr Nigel Speight, Prof Leonard Jason and Prof Malcolm Hooper. These were filmed and edited between 2009 and 2011, by the brother and mother of an ME patient in the UK. It shows the devastating consequences that occur when patients are disbelieved and the illness is misunderstood. Severe and lasting relapse occurs when patients are given inappropriate psychological or behavioural management: management that ignores the severe amplification of symptoms that can be caused by increased physical or mental activity or exposure to stimuli, and by further infections. A belief in behavioural and psychological causes, particularly when ME becomes very severe and chronic, following mismanagement, is still taught to medical students and healthcare professionals in the UK. As a consequence, situations similar to those shown in the film continue to occur.

5.3

Phases of Matter

Jan 25, 2020

Phases of Matter follows living and inanimate residents of a teaching hospital in Istanbul, moving from the operating room to the morgue, between life and other states, the real and the virtual.

7.4

Root of All Evil?

Jan 9, 2006

In this two-part Channel 4 series, Professor Richard Dawkins challenges what he describes as 'a process of non-thinking called faith'. He describes his astonishment that, at the start of the 21st century, religious faith is gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth. Science, based on scepticism, investigation and evidence, must continuously test its own concepts and claims. Faith, by definition, defies evidence: it is untested and unshakeable, and is therefore in direct contradiction with science. In addition, though religions preach morality, peace and hope, in fact, says Dawkins, they bring intolerance, violence and destruction. The growth of extreme fundamentalism in so many religions across the world not only endangers humanity but, he argues, is in conflict with the trend over thousands of years of history for humanity to progress to become more enlightened and more tolerant.

6.5

The Connection

Sep 1, 2014

The Connection is a film about how frontier research is proving that there is a direct connection between your mind and your health.

8.1

Picture a Scientist

Nov 11, 2020

A documentary that looks at systemic sexism faced by women scientists in STEM fields.

5.5

National Geographic: The Incredible Human Body

Jul 16, 2002

Cutting-edge medical technology and riveting, life-or-death personal dramas combine in this unprecedented, emotionally compelling exploration of The Incredible Human Body.

9.0

What Darwin Never Knew

Dec 29, 2009

Earth teems with a staggering variety of animals, including 9,000 kinds of birds, 28,000 types of fish, and more than 350,000 species of beetles. What explains this explosion of living creatures—1.4 million different species discovered so far, with perhaps another 50 million to go? The source of life's endless forms was a profound mystery until Charles Darwin brought forth his revolutionary idea of natural selection. But Darwin's radical insights raised as many questions as they answered. What actually drives evolution and turns one species into another? To what degree do different animals rely on the same genetic toolkit? And how did we evolve?

0.0

CARA-B

Apr 15, 2023

A desktop documentary that focuses on the Golden Record that NASA sent into space in the late 1970s. The piece reflects on issues such as the power of scientific discourse to produce revisions of the world, the evolution of the concept of the archive and the resignification of borders in the rhetoric of space colonialism.

Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution Trailers