- Welcome to Independent Lens.
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of PBS Wisconsin's Director's Cut .
Tonight, we bring you the story of how one unassuming scientist
from a Kentucky farm town helped launch a global industry
and showed how the power of science
can literally change the world.
Tonight's film is
Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution.
The film chronicles Sharp's early rural beginnings
to becoming a Nobel Laureate and entrepreneur,
embodying the American Dream.
In 1977, the rules of molecular biology were rewritten
thanks to a groundbreaking discovery called RNA splicing.
This innovation created a lifesaving revolution
within science
and laid the groundwork for an entire industry,
and in turn, improved the health of billions of people globally.
The man behind this discovery
is the film's title character, Phil Sharp,
a molecular biologist and geneticist
whose research changed history.
Sharp is so accomplished in his field
that his work garnered the attention of Ted Kaczynski,
also known as the Unabomber,
who threatened Sharp to stop his research,
as he did many who contributed to technological advances.
RNA splicing is the process
where introns are cut out of the primary RNA transcript.
Exons are added to make mature messenger RNA,
which carries the instructions a cell needs
for making a specific protein.
It took a day and a half of research
for me to come up with those two sentences.
I was half kidding, but trying to understand
what Sharp and the science community do on a daily basis
is not an easy task.
Sharp is well-decorated for his scientific breakthroughs,
winning a Nobel Prize and the National Medal of Science.
He is so accomplished
and his discoveries have saved so many lives
that it seems it was only a matter of time
before someone made a movie about him.
That someone is Bill Haney.
Bill Haney is an award-winning director
of both documentaries and narrative feature films.
The director and his leading man seem to be a natural fit
for the project.
Like Phil Sharp, Bill Haney also has an entrepreneurial spirit,
and as a result has created several companies.
His 2007 film The Price of Sugar
was the winner of the Audience Award for Emerging Visions
at the South by Southwest Film Festival.
Haney shows how Cracking the Code
not only explores how the innovations of Phil Sharp
have improved lives worldwide.
The film reveals how progress can literally be stopped
as attacks on research funding continue.
To make tonight's film even more entertaining,
it is narrated by Wisconsin-born Mark Ruffalo,
whose voice enhances this inspiring story of vision,
perseverance, and how the power of science
can literally change the world.
Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution
starts now on PBS Wisconsin, your home for independent film.