Eight Years of Epstein’s Human Cloning Program Documented
When Jeffrey Epstein told scientists he wanted to “seed the human race with his DNA,” the claim was widely dismissed as eccentric dinner-party speculation. Newly released federal exhibits suggest it may have been something more organized — and far more operational
In July 2019, weeks before his death, the New York Times published an account that stunned the scientific community.
Jeffrey Epstein, the paper reported, had for years confided to scientists and associates his desire to seed the human race with his own DNA.
The Times documented his aspirations as dinner party conversation and found no evidence they had ever come to fruition.
Twenty-four federal exhibits from the January 2026 DOJ EFTA release tell a more complete story.
They document not a sudden obsession but a sustained, eight-year private pursuit: active correspondence with George Church — one of the world’s most prominent geneticists — as early as November 2011; a 2014 exchange with a major healthcare executive who asked casually for “cloning updates”; the circulation of Church’s transhumanist writings under the subject line “my friend george” in 2015; and then, beginning in July 2018, a fully operational investment relationship with a biohacker running an overseas surgical laboratory, toward a company whose stated objectives included the first live birth of a human designer baby or human clone within five years.
The Times documented Epstein’s aspiration. These documents document eight years of operational pursuit.
Among those operations: the legal formation of an investment entity, conducted by Epstein’s longtime attorney Darren Indyke, for a $10 million human genome engineering portfolio submitted by one of Harvard’s most prominent geneticists — and the concurrent storage of Epstein’s own biological tissue samples inside that geneticist’s institutional infrastructure at Harvard Medical School.
These facts were not disclosed when Epstein’s ties to Harvard and MIT became a public scandal in 2019.
Part I: The Pre-History (2009–2015)
October 2009 — “A Hacking Protocol”: Epstein on DNA EFTA00885384 / EFTA01819143
Two years before Epstein’s first documented cloning correspondence with George Church, and three years before CRISPR-Cas9 became the defining tool of human genome editing, Epstein was describing gene expression manipulation in his own terms to a virologist.
On October 18, 2009, writing to Nathan Wolfe — pandemic surveillance expert, founder of Global Viral, and a member of Epstein’s science advisory network — Epstein attaches a URL to the classic Alice-and-Bob cryptography text on public-key encryption protocols and writes:
“trick now is to apply it to dna, rna i, seems to be a hacking protocol. turn on some turn off others.”
The reference is precise. Epstein was reading about cryptographic key exchange — the system by which information is encoded, selectively accessible, and controlled — and mapping it directly onto gene expression: genes as switches, turned on and off like cryptographic keys.
“Hacking” the protocol means gaining the ability to flip those switches deliberately. This is not the language of someone encountering the idea for the first time.
Embedded in the same thread is an inbound introduction that, in its unredacted form, identifies a key figure. Alice A. Jacobs, M.D. — Chairman and CEO of IntelligentMDx, an early detection diagnostics company in Cambridge, MA — writes to Epstein via an introduction from Henry Rosovsky (Harvard’s former Dean of Arts and Sciences).
Her opening:
“My business partner and best friend Boris Nikolic has become Bill Gates’ right arm on strategy.”
Boris Nikolic — who would appear in the 2012 SIOM thread as part of the Epstein-Merkin-Gates network, who was Bill Gates’s chief science advisor from 2006 to 2014, and who Epstein named as a potential executor in his will signed the day before his death — was already documented in Epstein’s social network in October 2009, introduced through Harvard channels, three years before his next documented appearance.
What this establishes: Epstein was applying a cryptographic-switch conceptual model to genetic editing in October 2009. Boris Nikolic’s connection to Epstein’s network dates to at least 2009 — three years earlier than previously documented.
The introduction came through Harvard social channels (Rosovsky), through a Cambridge-based biotech entrepreneur (Jacobs) who described Nikolic as Gates’s strategic right arm.
What this does not establish: That Epstein had any specific program or investment in view in 2009. That Nikolic was aware of or involved in Epstein’s cloning ambitions. That Jacobs’s business pitch to Epstein went anywhere.
2007–2010 — The Edge Network and Synthetic Genomics EFTA00736376
Epstein’s connection to George Church did not originate with their 2011 cloning correspondence. It runs through John Brockman and the Edge Foundation — the exclusive intellectual salon that brought together scientists, technologists, and financiers at private retreats.
In June 2010, Brockman invites Epstein to an Edge Seminar, referencing the landmark 2007 Edge event — “Life: What A Concept” — in which George Church, Freeman Dyson, J. Craig Venter, and others explored synthetic genomics.
The 2009 Edge Master Class on Synthetic Genomics featured Church and Venter again, held at the Andaz Hotel and SpaceX in Los Angeles.
A German journalist attending the 2007 event wrote:
“Nobody at Eastover Farm seemed afraid of a eugenic revival. What in German circles would have released violent controversies, here drifts by unopposed under mighty maple trees.”
By the time Epstein’s first direct cloning correspondence with Church is documented in November 2011, the two men had been moving in the same elite scientific salon for years.
What this establishes: Epstein’s relationship with Church predates the 2011 documents; it was embedded in a broader network of synthetic genomics intellectuals curated by Brockman through Edge.
May 2012 — The SIOM Vehicle and Boris Nikolic EFTA01885367
While the Church relationship was developing intellectually, a parallel financial infrastructure was already in operation. A May 2012 email thread concerning a China healthcare investment reveals that Epstein and Richard Merkin were co-investing through a shared vehicle: Merkin refers to “what secures the SIOM investment” in the context of a $10 million commitment.
SIOM is Epstein and Merkin’s joint investment structure — predating by two years the $10M biotech portfolio Church would pitch specifically to this vehicle.
The thread also introduces a figure who would later become significant: Boris Nikolic, at the time Bill Gates’s chief science advisor. Epstein forwards the China investment correspondence to Nikolic with the note:
“this is dick merkin, telling my friend that he is playing tennis with bill. david is my china contact.”
Nikolic responds that Gates is playing tennis that weekend before they travel to San Francisco to review the Kleiner Perkins portfolio. Merkin, meanwhile, is moving between a healthcare conference and a three-day tennis event with Bill Gates.
The practical significance: when Church submitted his $10M genome engineering portfolio proposal in July 2014 addressed to “the SIOM,” he was pitching not Epstein alone but the Epstein-Merkin co-investment structure — with Boris Nikolic in the overlapping network.
Nikolic later featured in the final chapter of Epstein’s life: Epstein’s will, signed the day before his death, named Nikolic as a potential executor.
What this establishes: The investment vehicle Church’s genome engineering pitch was addressed to was a pre-existing Epstein-Merkin structure. Nikolic was embedded in this network by 2012.
The genome engineering investment, if it occurred, would have involved Merkin as co-investor.
What this does not establish: That Nikolic knew about or was involved in the genome engineering pitch. That any SIOM investment in Church’s portfolio was completed. The full scope of SIOM’s investments.
November 12, 2012 — Nowak Pitches Pääbo: “The Two of Them Could Build a Neanderthal Person” [EFTA02562818.]
A year after Church confirmed he was working toward the cloning goal, another figure in Epstein’s scientific network was independently adding to the same architecture.
Martin Nowak — Professor of Mathematics and Biology at Harvard, director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, and later credited by his own account with having a CRISPR collaboration with Church’s lab “induced” by Epstein — wrote to Epstein from Vienna on November 12, 2012, reporting on a meeting with Svante Pääbo, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.
Nowak described Pääbo in three lines:
“he sequences old bones. got a complete neanderthal genome. you would like him.”
He then added:
“he knows church. the two of them could build a neanderthal person!”
Pääbo’s complete Neanderthal genome sequencing, referenced here as a known accomplishment, was announced in 2010 and expanded in 2012. It is among the most significant achievements in modern genomics; Pääbo received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2022 for this work.
Nowak was not speculating about a marginal figure. He was flagging the scientist who had sequenced the Neanderthal genome as a potential addition to an already active network, with the specific suggestion that Church’s existing genome engineering capabilities and Pääbo’s ancient DNA archive together represented a path to something Epstein had already expressed interest in.
Two months later, Der Spiegel’s misquotation of Church as seeking a surrogate mother for a Neanderthal baby became a global media firestorm. The story was treated publicly as a bizarre journalistic distortion.
In Epstein’s network, the Church-Pääbo-Neanderthal connection had been in active private circulation for at least two months before the story broke.
What this establishes: Nowak was actively identifying and pitching scientific network targets to Epstein as early as November 2012 — functioning as a scientific intelligence source, not merely a recipient of Epstein’s brokerage.
The Neanderthal cloning concept was in explicit private circulation in Epstein’s network two months before the Der Spiegel story made it a public controversy.
What this does not establish: That Pääbo was ever contacted by Epstein or aware of his interest. That Nowak’s pitch resulted in any introduction or meeting. That the Neanderthal cloning framing was anything other than excited speculation on Nowak’s part in a private email.
May 2013 — Epstein Brokers the Church-Merkin Introduction EFTA00677967
The Church-Merkin connection was not organic. It was brokered by Epstein. On May 1, 2013, Epstein emails Church and Merkin together with four words: “george dick, dick george.” — a mutual introduction.
Church follows up to Merkin on May 5, cc’ing Epstein:
“I believe that you both were interested in our disruptive technologies (precise, fast and inexpensive) for human genome (and microbiome) engineering — especially in the context of our PGP biobank human stem cell samples — which we (& NIST + FDA, genomeinabottle.org) feel are the only ones in the world properly consented for broad commercial use.”
Church references “a conversation in LA” as the occasion of their prior meeting — meaning Epstein had already brought Church and Merkin into the same room before making the email introduction.
When Merkin does not respond within two weeks, Church reports back to Epstein: “No response, so far, from Richard Merkin.” Epstein forwards the message to Merkin asking “where is the article?” — actively managing the introduction and pushing Merkin to engage. Merkin tells Epstein they are scheduled to speak on June 3. The chain closes.
By April 2014, Merkin was asking Epstein for “cloning updates” — a year after Epstein introduced him to the Harvard geneticist working on human genome engineering.
What this establishes: Epstein deliberately introduced Church and Merkin to each other as co-investment prospects in human genome engineering, following a prior in-person meeting he arranged. The Church-Merkin relationship was a product of Epstein’s brokerage, not an independent connection.
What this does not establish: What was discussed in the LA meeting. Whether Merkin and Church ever spoke on June 3. Whether any co-investment resulted from this introduction.
July 20–21, 2013 — Gershenfeld, Church, and the Neanderthal Surrogate Story EFTA01741902
In January 2013, five months before Epstein brokered the Church-Merkin introduction, George Church became the center of a global media firestorm. Der Spiegel had misquoted him as seeking a “surrogate mother” to carry a cloned Neanderthal baby. The story went globally viral.
On July 20, 2013, Epstein wrote to Gershenfeld reporting on a recent in-person meeting with Church:
“met with george church afterward shared our neil fan club secret handshake.”
He added that Church had asked for “20 percent of time to think” — flagging it as a notable condition:
“sounds like a sig proportion when there are so many other things like sleeping eating… not a lot left.”
The following morning, Gershenfeld replied with a link to a debunking piece about the Neanderthal baby story, assuming Epstein had already tracked it.
Two things are established by this exchange. First, Epstein was meeting George Church in person in mid-2013 and discussing him with another senior MIT scientist immediately afterward.
Second, the Church surrogate/cloning controversy was not a topic these men held at arm’s length — Gershenfeld assumed Epstein was tracking it closely enough to have seen the debunking article, and used it as casual conversational reference.
Church’s public association with cloning and surrogacy was ambient shared context in Epstein’s scientific network.
What this establishes: Epstein had a sustained, in-person relationship with Church in 2013, and Church’s cloning-adjacent public controversy was known and referenced between Epstein and his MIT network contacts.
What this does not establish: What Epstein and Church discussed in person. That Gershenfeld had knowledge of Epstein’s private cloning ambitions.
This is taken from a long document. Read the rest here substack.com
Header image: New York Times