There have been more revelations about connections between George Church & Epstein in the past few weeks from the new Epstein files document drop.
Church & Epstein
I wrote earlier about how Jeffrey Epstein interacted with a team at Harvard/MGH. This included George Church and his colleague at the time Joe Thakuria. There were discussions about doing research on Epstein’s cells. Most of the questions I had in that piece about what happened remain unresolved, but there have been other media reports that shed light on the situation.
CNN also covered some of this story the week before my first post and since then has had another piece that reports other connections between Church and Epstein: How Epstein enlisted Harvard scientists to burnish his reputation — and try to make a profit.
Then over at STAT, Megan Molteni had a piece more recently with additional information: Jeffrey Epstein’s tissue samples ignited a furor in the Harvard lab of George Church. Megan’s article includes perspectives from inside Harvard/MGH. Based on Megan’s reporting, it seems there was pushback on Epstein being part of the genome project there and potentially getting special treatment.
The newer CNN piece includes a photo it says is of Church on “Epstein Island”. Adding it all up, given all the emails, invites, and meetings, it doesn’t seem like such a tangential connection.
In another email an assistant to Epstein was asking Church if he wanted to come to a party at Epstein’s house for Woody Allen. The emails involving Church seem very familiar and friendly like these folks regularly connect.
CNN also reported on something called Georgarage. From CNN: “Emails show Church and Epstein discussing investments in at least three companies using Georgarage, including a company co-founded by Church, eGenesis, that develops gene-edited organs for human transplant.” So, CNN’s reporting suggests that they discussed possible research and investment collaborations.
Reflections, ‘greed’, & making amends somehow?
To me, it seems like nerd tunnel vision is not going to explain all of this. Maybe even Church is thinking about all of it more deeply?
Here’s one of the more striking passages from the STAT piece:
“In an interview last week, he (Church) said that upon reflection, the decision to continue to accept funds from Epstein and his associates came more from a place of greed than need.”
That’s a remarkable bit of reflection.
Perhaps at the very beginning, Church may have engaged with Epstein naively, viewing him as a potential science patron. However, once involved it appears that he continued engaging for years with Epstein despite increasing reasons for caution.
A recent Science article provides more context about Epstein reaching out to scientist. It has examples of how three high-profile scientists either said “no” to Epstein or the equivalent by brushing off his emails.
This all makes me wonder where Church goes from here.
It’s impossible to undo interacting with Epstein, but the situation now raises the question of what meaningful, concrete gestures of remorse might look like.
One possibility would be a symbolic one. How about something like personally donating an amount equal to his research funding directly tied to Epstein to organizations that support survivors of abuse and work to prevent sex crimes against girls and young women? That would be a powerful step.