The two women behind a world-changing scientific discovery
Good Chemistry takes viewers behind the scenes and beyond the headlines of the CRISPR gene-editing breakthrough. Centred on the work of the French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier and the US biochemist Jennifer Doudna, who together became the first all-female team to receive the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2020, this short documentary details how their landmark 2012 paper on the CRISPR system was the result of years of experimentation, passionate work and collaboration. The film is both an accomplished piece of storytelling and of science communication, illuminating the biochemistry behind CRISPR and the experience of being part of a truly world-changing discovery.
Video by Science Communication Lab
Producers: Shannon Behrman, Sarah Goodwin, Regina Sobel
videoHistory of science
Insect aesthetics – long viewed as pests, in the 16th century bugs became beautiful
8 minutes
videoHistory of science
How we came to know the size of the Universe – and what mysteries remain
26 minutes
videoArt
Defying classification, fantastical artworks reframe the racism of Carl Linnaeus
8 minutes
videoHistory of science
Meet the Quaker pacifist who shattered British science’s highest glass ceilings
14 minutes
videoHistory of science
Ideas ‘of pure genius’ – how astronomers have measured the Universe across history
29 minutes
videoSpace exploration
The rarely told story of the fruit flies, primates and canines that preceded us in space
12 minutes
videoTechnology and the self
A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg
11 minutes
videoBiology
An elegy for a dying microbe explores what we really mean by ‘death’
9 minutes
videoBiotechnology
It’s our responsibility to engineer corals that can weather the world we’ve created
11 minutes