Good News: Research and Medicinal Chemists Making a Difference

Stories of people doing their jobs well, treating each other with respect, and trying to make the world a better place are all examples of “good news.” Such stories don’t generate many website hits, nor do they bring people into the theaters. Instead, it seems readers and movie viewers would rather have the double pleasure of learning about bad behavior and its comeuppance. Five movies in this chapter overcome this problem; they are based on true stories. The advantage of such stories is the sympathy viewers feel as they appreciate the adversities the chemist has overcome to make their celebrated findings. For instance, in the documentary Me & Isaac Newton, which explores the motivations of seven scientists, pharmaceutical chemist Gertrude Elion is warm and charming as she describes why she decided to become a chemist. When she later describes her struggles to enter graduate school and then get a job as a chemist, the viewer is struck by her matter-of-fact, water-under-the-bridge tone. This all happened before she understood there was a climate of active discrimination against women that had nothing to do with their drive or abilities. Still later, she says the ultimate reward for all her work comes when someone thanks her for having developed the drug that cured a loved one. The disadvantage of using true stories is the need to create dramatic tension. The important moments in people’s lives rarely coincide with obvious indications that “this is the moment when everything fell into place,” whereas a movie’s linear narrative has to make that point clear to the audience. Another problem for moviemakers is that most people just aren’t very curious about the origins of everyday things. This is a challenge because very few chemicals cause the imagination to soar (unless you are a chemist), which may explain why all five movies based on true stories are about medicinal chemistry, which can be seen as the external evidence of the chemist’s desire to do good things for other people. Fictional movie chemists are less likely to develop medicines. Like the chemistry professors in chapter 8, they tend to develop chemical products for more selfish reasons.