Young Frankenstein: With Dr. Dany Adams

Media

Logistics

  • Monday, October 21 | 7:00 – 9:00 pm
  • Offering Format: Public Event
  • Recommended for grade 12 and adults
  • Coolidge Corner Theatre
  • Members, students, and seniors: $8; general admission: $10

    • Associated Persons

    With Dany Adams, Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology

Description

Director Mel Brooks's inspired parody stars Gene Wilder as Frederick Frankenstein, who tries to live down his family's reputation by pronouncing his name "Fronkensteen" and rejecting his grandfather's infamous experiments in the reanimation of dead tissue. But when he is forced to visit the family castle in Transylvania and discovers granddad's lab journal ("How I Did It" by Victor Frankenstein), he embraces his destiny: to succeed where his ancestor failed. With the help of a salvaged corpse, a purloined brain, and an electrical storm, Frederick creates his monster (Peter Boyle) and brings him to life — with hilariously unintended consequences.

With Science on Screen, the Coolidge Corner Theatre creatively pairs a feature film or documentary with lively presentations by notable figures from the world of science, medicine, and technology. The Science on Screen series is co-presented by the Museum of Science, Boston and supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, with additional support from Gesmer, Updegrove LLP, and Richard Anders.

Photo © Twentieth Century Fox/Photofest

Also in This Series

View other presentations in the Science on Screen Series.

Additional Information

Before the film, Dr. Dany Adams, a principal investigator at the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology, will share how scientists are taking a centuries-old concept — electricity’s potential for regeneration — in exciting new directions. Adams and her colleagues are investigating how the natural electrical signals transmitted among cells help guide biological shape, and how these signals may be manipulated to generate specific organs and body parts.

By tweaking bioelectric properties, the Tufts researchers have prompted tadpoles to sprout new tails past the normal stage of regeneration and produced all manner of odd creatures: tadpoles with working eyes on their backs, four-headed flatworms, and frogs sprouting toes at the site of an amputated leg. Applied to humans, these techniques could one day be used to regenerate lost limbs, replace damaged organs, repair birth defects, and more.