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Jonathan Renouf

Peter Leonard

The Code of Life: Great Scientists in their Own Words

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Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

30/12/2013

BBC Four - The Code of Life: Great Scientists in their Own Words

The story of some of the most important genetic scientists of the modern age.

The story of some of the genetic scientists who dared to discover the secret of life - men and women obsessed by intellectual challenges but dogged by their human failings.

Documentary telling the story of some of the most important scientific thinkers of the modern age - an epic tale of men and women obsessed by intellectual challenges but dogged by their human failings - of bitter personal rivalries, clashes of ideology and unlikely collaboration. These are the people who discovered the structure of DNA and worked out how our genes work, who changed our view of life forever. The film is an unvarnished account of the scientists who dared to discover the secret of life - told through fascinating and revealing archive - in their own words.

Contributors interviewed include: Sir Paul Nurse - biologist, Nobel laureate and President of the Royal Society, Professor Lisa Jardine - historian of science and daughter of Jacob Bronowski, who hence knew many of the Cambridge scientists involved with the DNA story as a child and an undergraduate, and Professor Steve Jones, a geneticist at UCL.

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