Science in the Cinema presents Death Becomes Her
Presented by UCalgary's Cumming School of Medicine, and hosted in partnership with the Calgary Public Library. This special edition is presented by UCalgary Alumni as part of Alumni All-Access.
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Where: Central Library, 800 3 St SE, Calgary, AB
Doors Open: 5:00 pm
Begins at: 5:30 pm
Death Becomes Her
Frenemies. An unhealthy obsession with beauty. A magic potion. Plastic surgery. Gruesome wounds. Immortality. What more could you ask for just before Halloween?
Join us for a screening of the black comedy fantasy film Death Becomes Her, directed and produced by Robert Zemeckis and starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis and Isabella Rossellini.
You'll laugh, you'll gasp and you'll be horrified, and then you'll have the opportunity to ask questions of UCalgary alumni and experts in human organoid research to learn just how far away we are from the fountain of youth explored in this 1992 cult classic...or, just how close.
FREE admission and snack, seating is first-come, first-serve.
This special edition Science in the Cinema is presented by UCalgary Alumni as part of Alumni All-Access. Registration will look a little different.
Meet the Speakers
Dr. Jack Chu, PhD
Dr. Chu is an associate professor in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at UCalgary, a Tier II Canada Research Chair in cellular reprogramming and a member of the Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute (ACHRI). He earned his PhD in cell and molecular biology from Baylor College of Medicine and completed postdoctoral training at the Morgridge Institute for Research and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on understanding how developmental timing is encoded and regulated during human and animal development. Using pluripotent stem cell-derived developmental clock models, 3D organoids, live-cell imaging and single-cell omics, his laboratory investigates the molecular mechanisms underlying spinal and retinal development, congenital disorders and regenerative medicine.
Dr. Simon Hirota, PhD
Dr. Hirota is a professor and associate dean research (infrastructure) at UCalgary in the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases. Dr. Hirota and his team are working to better understand how the gut functions in both health and disease. They study how gut bacteria and the immune system help keep the intestines healthy, as well as what causes inflammation, scarring and tissue changes in conditions like Crohn’s disease. Dr. Hirota also co-leads the Canadian National Organoid Network and co-directs the Snyder Institute’s Human Organoid Innovation Hub.
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