Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution

Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution tracks Phil Sharp’s journey from his early days in a shack with no indoor water or electricity on a Kentucky tobacco farm to winning the Nobel Prize and pioneering the global biotechnology revolution.

Born into a family that went bankrupt during the Depression, to parents who never attended high school, and challenged with severe dyslexia, determination fueled Phil’s path to Caltech and MIT. There, his discovery of how DNA makes RNA would overturn decades of dogma in biology, shed new light on how genes work, and reveal novel insights into the root causes of disease.

Phil Sharp and his colleagues then transformed these insights into life-saving therapies, founding companies that created new treatments for diabetes, multiple sclerosis, leukemia, and countless other diseases that transformed the world for patients. In 2024 alone, 7.4 billion people took a biotechnology drug, and as of 2025, 4.5 million people work in biotechnology.

Narrated by Mark Ruffalo and weaving interviews with Nobel laureates into insights from Walter Isaacson, Cracking the Code showcases the ability of a creative thinker with an entrepreneurial passion to transform science globally.