Naturally Obsessed: The Making of a Scientist

Credit: Olga Miltsova

A penetrating view of what it takes to become a scientist.

Mixing humor with heartbreak, Naturally Obsessed: The Making of a Scientist, airing Thursday, September 12, 2013 at 9 p.m. on WXXI World, tells a profoundly real yet intensely dramatic story about life in a molecular biology lab.

"I want the viewer to stand in the shoes of a scientist at work in a lab, glimpse the world of research as it really is, and understand what it takes to fill an ample pipeline of future scientists" says scientist turned filmmaker, Sloan-Kettering Institue Chairman Emeritus, Richard Rifkind. 

Drawn from three years filming in a single laboratory, the film focuses on a group of irrepressible graduate students working towards the PHD degree, and their mentor, a tough but genial young professor.