Pickford Film Center Bellingham, WA
Dr. David Sherman
Professor, Infectious Disease Research; Affiliate Professor, University of Washington
Blade Runner— The Replicant Next Door: What the New Genetics Means to You
Program Description
A pre-screening introduction on how close we are to performing the kind of genetic modifications we see in sci-fi films.
Presented At
Pickford Film Center Bellingham, WA
Film Synopsis
A blade runner must pursue and try to terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.
In the not-too-distant future, Los Angeles and the surrounding area has become a dystopian wasteland, heavily industrialized and overcrowded. Genetically engineered humanoid beings known as replicants are manufactured by the powerful Tyrell Corporation for use in dangerous off-world colonization. Retired police officer Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), whose job was to track down replicants and assassinate them, is informed that four have come to Earth illegally. Called before his one-time superior (M. Emmett Walsh), Deckard is forced back into active duty to find and destroy the rogue replicants. Ridley Scott’s neo-noir classic initially polarized critics, but has since come to be regarded as one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time.
About the Speaker
Dr. David Sherman is a full professor at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and an Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. He earned his BA from UC Berkeley, his PhD in biochemistry from Vanderbilt University, and he performed postgraduate work at Rockefeller University and at Washington University in St. Louis. He began work on Mycobacterium tuberculosis while at PathoGenesis Corp., where he played a lead role in the discovery and early development of the new TB drug PA-824 that is now in clinical trials. The Sherman laboratory is internationally recognized, both for integrating cutting-edge approaches of systems biology into its TB research and for its TB drug discovery program. In 2013, the lab’s work was highlighted as one of the 20 top research achievements of the year by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease director, Dr. Tony Fauci.