Dr. Wayne Grody is a molecular biologist at UCLA. But his part-time job sounds like a lot more fun: "technical advisor on a number of motion picture and television productions". He's the guy responsible for giving Eddie Murphy's Professor Klump character a ginormous research lab despite the fact that he worked at a small liberal arts college. To Grody's credit, however, he did try to plant thermal cyclers, which the director found "visually boring". But, according to Grody, scientists account for such a small proportion of TV viewers and movie-goers that scientific accuracy isn't much of a concern.
That explains this. That link goes to a post of mine from a while back bitching about the portrayal of a grad student in the film Laurel Canyon. I even included the following gripe:
Honestly, how hard is it to find an expert advisor to ensure the tiny bit of science in the film is presented with a semblance of accuracy? The film takes place less than ten miles from UCLA, a 15-30 minute drive depending on traffic. I'm sure they could have scrounged up a grad student from the molecular biology department to ensure that Drosophila is pronounced correctly. Pay that kid a couple hundred bucks and promise them their name in the credits, and they'll definitely be in.
It turns out Dr. Grody would have done it for twice the price.
(Via iBiome.)
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Next time they should try Stratagene's robocycler.