"I always had to have proof. That's what science is all about," proclaims Gertrude Elion, who won a Nobel Prize in medicine in 1988, making her one of only ten women ever to do so. Elion declared a major in chemistry after her grandfather's death from cancer, and graduated summa cum laude from Hunter College in 1937. Her first discovery was that working as a woman would be difficult; she was considered a "distraction" in the all-male laboratories of her time.

By World War II, however, laboratories finally started opening to women, and Elion’s luck changed. During one interview she remembers, the job "sounded so exciting, I decided to take it, learn everything that I possibly could and then perhaps move on or go back to school." Elion thus began a career with a pharmaceutical company, but ended up staying for decades, inventing scores of drugs and finding some of her best "proofs" after she turned sixty.

"Everything seemed to say to me that if you do research and find cures for diseases, then that is what your life is about." Inspired to study DNA after losing her mother and fiancé to serious illness, Elion worked with George Hitchings, hoping to unlock the secrets of living cells. "I stayed in that job for more than forty years, but I kept on learning. That was the most wonderful part." Drawn to science by a nearly religious respect for nature and its secrets, working alone and with Hitchings, she created drugs used to fight leukemia and herpes, as well as those that suppress the body’s rejection of organ transplants. Elion's name now appears on more than 45 drug patents, making her one of the most prolific chemists of our time.

Fascinated from a young age by how things work, Ashok Gadgil decided early on that he would be a scientist. He once suggested spinning a child's top in the opposite direction and got it working – and from then on was convinced that science was his calling. Born in Bombay, he attended college in India, earned a perfect score in physics, and immigrated to the United States to get a Ph.D. in physics at U.C. Berkeley.

Gadgil, while traveling across the US as a graduate student, was stunned by the contrast between the gross poverty of his homeland and the gross consumption he saw in America. He realized that if India's population ever reached even a fifth of the average American standard of living, the world's resources could not support it. Gadgil decided to use his work in science to address important human problems and find ways of helping people in developing nations.

The deadly impact of cholera and other contagious diseases inspired Gadgil to find a simple solution to the problem of water purification. Working without funding and with the sole help of a graduate student, Gadgil's work was driven by his keen eye for physical phenomena and his experience of technological limitations in India. Simplicity and efficiency were critical; any invention must have no moving parts, and even fifteen minutes was too long to expect villagers to wait around while water was being disinfected. Without purification, villagers would continue to consume cholera-infested water. And the problem would only worsen.

In the end, Gadgil and his assistants found a unique way to disinfect four gallons of water per minute, using ultraviolet lamps; better yet, it cost only a few cents per metric ton of water. His new "UV Waterworks" system, with its rugged yet easy-to-use specifications, has offered Gadgil a vision of small business people in India supporting themselves by manufacturing the devices. At the end of the day, Gadgil measures his success "not in the awards I've received for the invention, but in the widespread use of Waterworks," which he hopes will become widely available soon.

As a child who adored science fiction, Michio Kaku noticed that the scientist, Dr. Zarkov, drove the action in the Flash Gordon television series he watched regularly. Born to poor Japanese parents who were interred during World War II, Kaku decided as a second grader that science was better than any murder mystery. Kaku was captivated then by the mysterious calculations hidden in an unfinished Einstein manuscript that he saw in a photo announcing the scientist’s death.

These days Kaku is a theoretical physicist and co-founder of String Theory, which he explains as "the idea that little vibrating strings are at the core of electrons, protons and neutrons." Mental imagery inspires his work in mathematical physics; he imagines we are like the fish he saw in the Japanese ponds in gardens of his youth. They swim around, oblivious of the air and the fourth dimension above water. That is their hyperspace, detectable only when raindrops splash on the pond.

In the same way, physicists become aware of a tenth dimension (hyperspace) only when they observe impacts from outside our known world. Driven by questions such as "Is time travel possible? Can we drill a hole through time and space? Is it possible to bend time into a pretzel?” Kaku explores hyperspace and parallel universes, and his search is for the ultimate equation that will explain Super String Theory.

"I believe in the cosmic order, and my goal in life is to try to find that question, no more than an inch long. A unified theory of everything that would allow us to read the mind of God."

At sixteen Maja Mataric emigrated from Yugoslavia with her family and quickly came to feel like an outsider in 1981 Kansas. She had no particular interest in science, but had hardworking parents and a mother with a Ph.D. Mataric first considered working in psychology or neuroscience, since the workings of the human brain fascinated her, but her immigrant background drew her to the stability and economic promise of computers. Despite her fascination with art, particularly shoe design, her interest in technology grew, and she ended up at MIT, where she graduated with a Ph.D. of her own in 1994.

At MIT Mataric began work in the artificial intelligence lab, exploring the interface between how humans and machines "learn." Wanting to study the speed of intelligence and the interaction of the brain and body, she thought that rather than just observing it in nature, "there's something incredibly creative about building it yourself." So that’s what she did.

As a new mother, Mataric is now inspired by the natural intelligence that’s programmed into babies. Designing intelligent robots begins with discovering what intelligent behavior is. Although playing chess used to be the magic bullet for artificial intelligence experts, Mataric now firmly believes intelligence is "the capacity to learn from the world and keep adapting,” and the definition applies to all forms of life. Working at the forefront of artificial intelligence, she loves the inherent risk at the heart of discovery. "The dream would be to put into a robot the capability to improve its behavior, to learn over time, and to adapt to whatever happens around it. I think that is really the definition of intelligence."

Now director of MIT's McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neurosciences, Steven Pinker studies how the human mind works by observing the use of language. He was fascinated with fossils and bugs as a child, debate was frequent in his family, and he loved argument and language as much as taking things apart to find out how they worked. "When I got to college and discovered you could also do this with a human mind, it was tremendously exciting."

His first book for the general public, The Language Instinct, explains that language evolved in the human species gradually, over millions of years. Babies have skills and reflexes that once belonged to primitive ancestors, passed down genetically as the mind evolved. Many instincts are valuable remnants from our evolutionary past, such as protecting the young or hunting, while others are useless holdovers, such as the fight or flight syndrome, or baring the teeth, as if preparing to fight.

A controversial thinker, Pinker considers desires and beliefs to be neutral information – mere symbols that cause behavior and actions. Thus, actions don’t arise spontaneously from the human heart. The more we understand about the brain, Pinker believes, "the more we realize the brain is an exquisitely complex material object and that everything is going to be increasingly understood in terms of the physiological process of the brain." Eventually, Pinker believes, we will see how the human brain is wired, and how the "software" wired into us allows us to speak, while our closest relative, the chimpanzee, cannot.

"I blew a few holes in the ground as a child," explains Karol Sikora mischievously, "and I don't think my parents knew about it." Sikora and his scientist friends were considered freaks at school because of their endless curiosity about how things worked, and building homemade bombs was just one way of expressing a fascination with chemistry. A television program about Louis Pasteur’s discovery of the rabies vaccine piqued Sikora's interest in biology, and his father's death of lung cancer (when Sikora was only sixteen) sealed his medical ambitions.

Sikora now works on the molecular behavior of cancer cells and uses gene therapy to stunt the growth of cancer in affected patients. In one of his protocols, damaged DNA sections are replaced with healthy sections in breast cancer patients, with the hope of saving lives worldwide. Although the ethical questions of using gene therapy with living patients can be thorny, with cancer patients who have tried everything else, it is easier. Using existing technology, he says, "you could probably save a third more lives from cancer just using the knowledge we have today, if you could get it out there."

With the demands of international cancer research, Sikora says he misses his daily contact with patients. During his illustrious career, he has performed surgical transplants and worked in radiation and oncology both in the US and the UK. Recently appointed to lead the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, Sikora works at the frontier of cancer therapies, edits two cancer journals and has contributed to a dozen books. Still, he says, "There's something very satisfactory if someone phones you up, even in the middle of the night, and says ‘Look, I've got problems here’ and you can help solve them for them."

As a young animal lover, Patricia Wright's ambition was to travel from New York to New Jersey to meet the author of Ladd, a Dog. As a teenager, Wright hid her high test scores, and after college she became a social worker and a housewife until the day she bought an owl monkey as a pet. Driven by her curiosity about the behavior of her monkey and its mate, Wright decided to study owl monkeys in their natural habitat, despite having no credentials or experience.

With support from a Rochester, N.Y. benefactor and a quickly negotiated university affiliation, she set off for South America with her family in tow. On her return she presented her notes - the first ever gathered on nocturnal monkeys in the wild - to an anthropologist at City University of New York. He urged Wright to begin graduate study, and soon thereafter she published her first scientific paper. In 1989, nearly twenty years after her first trip to the jungle, she was awarded a MacArthur "genius" grant for her work, which by then had led her to Madagascar.

It was there that Wright discovered one of the 32 varieties of lemurs unique to that environment, the golden lemur, which eats enough cyanide in its daily bamboo diet to kill a man. Since 80%of all life on Madagascar - one of the ten poorest countries in the world - is found nowhere else on earth, Wright was alarmed by the devastation caused by centuries of "slash and burn" farming. The loss of forests threatens countless plant and animal species, including those crucial to medicine. The rosy periwinkle, for example, is the source of vincristine, a life-saving leukemia drug. Reacting to the destruction, Wright helped villagers develop ecotourism to improve their economic future, thereby slowing the shrinking biological diversity of the island. Her friend Dr. Alison Jolly from Princeton says, "Her extraordinary contribution has been Pat's ability to see the intimate link between the beauty of the animals and the lives of the people. What matters is both."

Producer of ME & ISAAC NEWTON, Jody Patton also produced Michael Apted's “Inspirations,” is executive producer of Julie Taymor's forthcoming film “Titus,” and co-executive produced “Men With Guns,” directed by John Sayles. Patton is also overseeing “Evolution,” an 8-part TV documentary series in development with WGBH public television that will air in 2001.

Patton serves as president of Clear Blue Sky Productions and oversees all aspects of the company's various film projects, including development, finance and production.

Michael Apted was born in England in 1941 and studied law and history at Cambridge University prior to the beginning of his entertainment career as a researcher at Granada Television. Within a few years, he became well-established as a television director and investigative reporter on the news series "World in Action," and directing episodes of Britain's long-running series "Coronation Street."

Two of his television series won British Academy awards: “The Lovers” for Best Comedy Series, and “Folly Foot” for Best Children's Series. Apted himself won Best Dramatic Director for “Another Sunday and Sweet F.A.” and “Kisses at Fifty.” His other sixty-plus television credits include works by such leading English writers as Colin Welland, Jack Rosenthal and Arthur Hopcraft.

In 1972, Apted made his feature film directorial debut with the tense war era drama “Triple Echo,” starring Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed. Next, Apted's great love for rock and roll made him a natural to direct 1975's acclaimed “Stardust,” a journey into the dark underside of the music world produced by David Puttnam and featuring David Essex and Adam Faith. “The Squeeze,” a thriller with Stacy Keach followed in 1977, and two years later, Apted again teamed up with producer Puttnam to direct Dustin Hoffman and Vanessa Redgrave in “Agatha.”

Shot in the Appalachian mountains, 1980’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter” marked Apted's first directing project in America. The movie garnered seven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and won an Oscar for Sissy Spacek's moving portrayal of country-western singer Loretta Lynn.

Apted has shot in locations as varied as his projects. For “Gorky Park,”Apted traveled to Helsinki, Finland to shoot the film which starred William Hurt, Lee Marvin and Joanna Pakula. That same year, Apted returned to England to shoot “Kipperbang,” a project which earned him a British Academy Award nomination. For 1988's “Gorillas in the Mist,” Apted traveled to the African mountains of Rwanda and Kenya, where Sigourney Weaver's performance as the doomed conservationist earned her an Academy Award nomination along with the four other nominations for the film. 1989’s “The Long Way Home” took Apted to the Soviet Union to shoot the documentary about rock star Boris Brebenshikov, Russia's answer to Bruce Springsteen.

Apted’s other film credits include “First Born,” “Bring on the Night,” which won him a Grammy award, “Critical Condition,” starring Richard Pryor, “Class Action,” starring Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, “Thunderheart” starring Val Kilmer and Sam Shepard; “Blink,” starring Madeleine Stowe and Aidan Quinn; “Nell,” starring Jodie Foster, Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson and “Extreme Measures,” which starred Hugh Grant, Gene Hackman and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Apted is also noted for his documentaries, including 1992’s “Incident at Oglala” and 1994’s “Moving the Mountain.” Produced by Robert Redford, “Incident at Oglala” chronicles the plight of imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier. “Moving the Mountain,” which premiered at the 1994 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, tells the story of the Tiananmen Square massacre through the eyes of five student dissident leaders. The film won the grand prize at the Heartland Film Festival and an IDA award and was distributed nationwide by October Films.

Apted is, however, probably best known for his “Seven Up” documentary series. Beginning with a group of 14 seven-year-old, British schoolchildren in 1963, Apted has revisited this same group every seven years, following them through the twists and turns of life. Both “35 Up” and “28 Up” won the British Academy Award and the International Emmy, as well as the International Documentary award.

In July 1998, BBC 1 broadcast the latest installment of the series, “42 Up.” Concurrently, Apted executive produced American and Russian versions of the show: “14 Up In America” and Age 14 In Russia.” All three documentaries have been broadcast by the BBC. In the United States, “14 Up In America” was broadcast by Showtime and “42 Up” will be released theatrically in November 1999 by First Run Features.

With Clear Blue Sky Productions, Apted directed “Inspirations,” the documentary which inspired ME & ISAAC NEWTON as a companion piece. “Inspirations” featured seven artists - musician David Bowie, painter Roy Lichtenstein, sculptor Nora Narajo-Morse, architect Tadao Ando, glass blower Dale Chihuly, choreographer Édouard Lock and dancer Louise Lecavalier – and their reflections on the creative process. The artists speak about the images, memories, ideas, other artists - the inspiration - that has nurtured their own work. For “Inspirations,” Apted traveled to Seattle, Santa Fe, New York, Vancouver, London, Tel Aviv, and Osaka. The film world-premiered at the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival, with its U.S. premiere at the 1998 Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

In early 1998, Apted directed his first Los Angeles location film, “Always Outnumbered,” the first screenplay written by acclaimed novelist Walter Mosley, for HBO NYC productions. An urban fable, “Always Outnumbered” starred Laurence Fishburne with Bill Cobbs, Natalie Cole, Bill Nunn, Bridgid Coulter, Cicely Tyson, Isaiah Washington and Laurie Metcalf.

Under the OSIRIS FILMS banner, a production company Apted started with

producer Robert O'Connor, Apted executive produced: CRIMINAL JUSTICE, made for HBO Showcase and starring Forest Whitaker and Anthony La Paglia; DRACULA directed by Francis Ford Coppola; and STRAPPED which marked the directorial debut of Forest Whitaker.

Currently, Apted is in post-production on MGM and Eon Productions’ latest James Bond film. “The World Is Not Enough” stars Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards, Robbie Coltrane and Dame Judi Dench. The film will be released in November 1999.

In October 1999, Mr. Apted is being honoured by the International Documentary Association with its Career Achievement Award.

Gregory also produced “Inspirations,” the film which inspired ME & ISAAC NEWTON, with Clear Blue Sky Productions and director Apted.

Gregory will complete principal photography on “Honest,” a period feature she is producing with Michael Peyser, directed by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics. Written by Dick Clements and Ian La Frenais, the film stars Peter Facinelli, Nicole and Natalie Appleton and Melanie Blatt of All Saints.

Gregory is currently producing “The Prodigal Daughter,” written and directed by Jan Sharp, starring Michelle Yeoh and Sam Neil. She is also co-producing “Trail of the Tiger,” a project in development at Disney, with Jerry Bruckheimer (“Flashdance,” “Top Gun,” “Con Air”).

Rostock edited all of director Michael Apted’s feature documentaries in the past 12 years. For Rostock, the challenge of Inspirations was “capturing the spirit of each artist and giving every one enough time, as each could have easily been a whole film all by themselves.” Rostock also worked at “finding the balance — mixing all these different personalities so that the film became a dialogue rather than a series of separate interviews.”

Rostock says she was sorry when her work on Me & Isaac Newton was completed. “It was an exciting project; I learned a lot from this film, as did, I think, everyone who was involved in it. When I was working on the sound, for instance, the sound technicians would meet for lunch and talk about how the film made them want to go out and create something of their own. I think the film’s message pertains to anyone; it really is an inspiration.”