Museum offers free screening of “The Fly Room,” birthplace of modern genetics

For immediate release ‐ September 21, 2015

Contact: Jon Pishney, 919.707.8083. Images available upon request

RALEIGH — It all began as a dingy closet-like space at Columbia University in the early 1900s. It was here that the basic laws that govern heritability and the passing of traits were discovered – work that would eventually win the lab a Nobel Prize in 1933 and formed the foundation of the genetic discoveries that continue today. Visit the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences for a free screening of “The Fly Room,” (PG-13) a feature-length film inspired by the life of pioneering geneticist Calvin Bridges, showing on Thursday, October 1, 7-9pm. Free. The film’s director, Alexis Gambis , will also be on hand to introduce the film and to answer questions following the showing.

Told from the perspective of Bridges’ daughter Betsey, the film centers around her two-day experience being with her father in his laboratory – the fly room. At first Betsey feels closer to her father than she ever has, but she ultimately discovers secrets about him that will transform their relationship forever.

Most of what we know about modern genetics stems from the study of Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies) at Columbia University’s fly laboratory. A key part of the lab’s work was Bridges’ gene-map, which was essentially the first mapping of DNA. In 1914 Bridges proved that genes were actual things, physically located on a chromosome. He studied the multi-stranded chromosomes present in drosophila during their larval stages, in order to show the exact physical location of a gene. He translated his findings to a replica of a chromosome that was essentially a tower with different bands representing various genetic codes. The physical map was a breakthrough, giving scientists a visual guide to genetic sequencing and recombination for the first time. In five years, the lab developed a chromosome theory of heredity worthy of the 1933 Nobel Prize.

Director Alexis Gambis will introduce his film and will be available for a brief Q&A at the conclusion of the program. Gambis was a student at The Rockefeller University in New York when he became curious about the famous laboratory. He began researching a potential feature-length film about the lab, and made his own discovery – Calvin Bridges’ daughter was still alive. “That’s how the story began,” he says of his encounter with Betsey Bridges, who was in her 90s living in Asheville, NC.

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