George Church is an American god impersonator with side jobs as group leader at the Wyss Institute and triple professor, twice at Harvard and once at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is one of the most known, most admired and most media-present scientists. His secret: shameless bullshitting, borderless greed, and eugenics.
Toot toot
Most people know Church as the genius about to “de-extinct” the woolly mammoth. Ethics experts all over the world have nothing better to do but discuss the implications of mammoth resurrected. All because Church sounds so sure of his plans.
In September 2021, the project summarised by CNBC:
- “Tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm is helping to fund a project by Harvard geneticist George Church to revive the woolly mammoth.
- The project, called Colossal, aims to create a calf in as little as six years, Church told CNBC.
- Proponents also say rewilding the Arctic with lab-grown woolly mammoths could slow global warming by slowing the melting of the permafrost, where methane is currently trapped.“
Church was given whooping $15 million to wank about on Colossal, while Lamm acts as CEO. The plan was to create a mammoth calf in 6 years, i.e. by 2027, as CNBC wrote:
“…Colossal aims to create an Asian elephant genetically modified with herpes virus resistance and the ability to withstand the ice-cold temperatures. The calf Colossal aims to create will look and behave like a woolly mammoth, Church explained.
It sounds like science fiction, but Church said he is confident that he will be able to genetically modify the Asian elephant because he has done similar genetic manipulation with pigs, where he made 42 genetic edits to their cells.
“Then we can turn those cells into animals by transferring the nucleus, the DNA-containing part of the cell, in it into an egg and then it develops into piglets, in that case,” Church said. Those genetically modified pigs are healthy enough to be used for organ transplants in preclinical trials in three hospitals around the country, he said.
“That’s our proof of concept that we can do it,” Church said. “We didn’t do it as a prelude to the elephant, we did it for its own sake, but it helps convince us so we get to the elephant.”
The genetically modified elephant would be implanted into an engineered endometrium at first, and then would grow in a bag, which would look similar to the artificial womb that Philadelphia scientists used to grow a genetically engineered lamb in 2017, Church said.”
One of Church’s main strengths is to convince his investors and journalists never to ask about the status of his past genetic projects. What about those pigs with human organs Church created? Why is nobody using them to solve organ transplant shortage? A huge anti-Church conspiracy, or were those pigs bullshit as well?
The mammoth story was in fact even crazier, see solution to the global warming bit. Still the media gobbed it up and even started to praise Church as the saviour of humanity. Newsweek wrote in January 2022:
“Speaking to The Times, Church said this new animal should not be called a wooly mammoth: “An Arctic elephant is a better term,” he said.
Church told HMNews these hybrids could also help extant elephants living today. “All elephant species are endangered,” he said. “We’re trying to give them new land in the Arctic that’s far away from humans, who are the major culprits causing extinction.”
As climate change accelerates and heats the atmosphere, it is warming the Arctic faster than any other region on the planet. In the coming decades this is expected to have potentially disastrous effects.
Among them are the melting of Arctic permafrost and the release of the vast quantities of carbon and methane locked away underneath its frozen shell, further exacerbating climate change and global heating.
By re-wilding certain regions—including the Arctic—with elephant-mammoth hybrids, scientists believe they could help avert that particular disaster.
The animals could do so by helping to trample and suppress the rapid tree growth now seen in the Arctic that makes it harder for frost to penetrate the ground and freeze it. If they were successful, the permafrost could be saved, and the carbon it stores would remain locked away.
“The two-for-one is that not only would the elephants get a new homeland, but their homeland is in desperate need of environmental restoration, and they can help,” Church told HMNews. “Moving genetically adapted elephants to the Arctic offers an opportunity to sequester, or remove from the atmosphere, significant amounts of carbon and to prevent more carbon from escaping.”
Nobody told Church he is full of crap. Quite the opposite. They think he is about to solve climate change now. With arctic elephants.
Lunatic Park
Already in 2015, Church was on a good way to recreate the woolly mammoth, as DW wrote back then:
“The researchers have already managed to make 14 changes to the elephant genome, including woolly fur, a thicker subcutaneous fat layer and smaller ears, all directed at making the new animal better able to survive in colder climates.”
Church also discussed the possibility of creating a Jurassic Park with dinosaurs genetically engineered from chickens:
“”You could make a dinosaur-like creature,” Church agreed. “A large-scale bird with teeth and claws for hands, something that has the look and feel of the real thing.” […]
“I think we should stay away from carnivores for a while,” Church said with a laugh. “And I think you’d want to have a park in physical containment, very, very far away from people.”
More than a decade ago, Church was toying with the idea to use the same CRISPR/Cas9 technology to de-extinct Neanderthals. The German magazine Der Spiegel interviewed Church on the occasion of his 2012 book “Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves“, where Church announced to seek for “extremely adventurous female human” to serve as the surrogate mother for his genetically-engineered Neanderthals.
“SPIEGEL: Mr. Church, you predict that it will soon be possible to clone Neanderthals. What do you mean by “soon”? Will you witness the birth of a Neanderthal baby in your lifetime?
Church: I think so, but boy there are a lot of parts to that. The reason I would consider it a possibility is that a bunch of technologies are developing faster than ever before. In particular, reading and writing DNA is now about a million times faster than seven or eight years ago. Another technology that the de-extinction of a Neanderthal would require is human cloning. We can clone all kinds of mammals, so it’s very likely that we could clone a human. Why shouldn’t we be able to do so? […]
SPIEGEL: So let’s talk about possible benefits of a Neanderthal in this world.
Church: Well, Neanderthals might think differently than we do. We know that they had a larger cranial size. They could even be more intelligent than us. When the time comes to deal with an epidemic or getting off the planet or whatever, it’s conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial.”
See, of only Church was given enough money back then, we wouldn’t have to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic so much. Especially since the Neanderthals caused it anyway:
Dirty diseased Neanderthals
Who brought us COVID-19? The Neanderthals. The susceptibility to the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus, but also to diabetes, obesity, allergies, skin diseases, smoking and autism all happened because your great-[…]-great-grandfather could not keep his todger in his trousers many thousands of years ago.
However, Church’s problem is that his business investors and admirers in the media likely keep asking about, uhm, the progress of his mammoth project. One has to throw them a stick to chase after, so here is Church’s colossal new plan to de-extinct the Thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian wolf or Tasmanian tiger. This Australian apex predator the size of a smallish dog got wiped out in 1930ies. Incidentally, it is a marsupial, meaning it doesn’t gestate in a womb, real or artificial one, for very long. You know, in case the artificial womb isn’t working.
Again, Newsweek reported in August 2022:
“Now the company is planning to do the same for the thylacine by creating a Tasmanian tiger—or more specifically, something that resembles it—and reintroducing the animal to selected areas in Australia with the hopes that it will have a positive impact on local ecosystems. […]
To make this dream a reality, Colossal is teaming up with and investing in the Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research Lab (TIGRR) at the University of Melbourne, Australia, headed by Andrew Pask—a leading marsupial evolutionary biologist and Tasmanian tiger expert—which has already sequenced most of the animal’s genome.”
The mammoth was to be made by genetic engineering of Asian elephant, the dinosaur from a chicken, and Neanderthal probably by cloning a GMO Church himself. As for the thylacine, Newsweek explained:
“To know what edits need to be made to the genome of the closest living relative—a mouse-like marsupial called the fat-tailed dunnart—the scientists need to be able to compare it to the thylacine’s genome and identify any key differences. Pask’s team has completed the sequencing of around 96 percent of the thylacine genome, although some challenging work remains to nail down the remaining 4 percent.”
I hate to insult animals, but Church and Pask sound like two fat-tailed dunnarts.
Detracting that yapping media and investors with a stick was a good idea, but even better to throw them two sticks. So after mammoth and thylacine, Church and his company Colossal announced in January 2023 to de-extict the Dodo, the giant flightless pigeon from Mauritius which was exterminated centuries ago. Birds, as even non-biologist will know, don’t have need wombs to gestate. Church probably bought an egg incubator already.
I am speculating here, but I think thylacine and dodo most likely arrived on the menu because Church’s plans for an artificial womb went tits up, one of the main impediments to his progress with mammoth. His high-tech gestation machine clearly is not working at all, if it ever existed. So let’s flip them a bird, Church thought. Guardian loves it:
“With the mammalian species the technique requires implanting gene-editing material into the reproductive system of an existing relative of the species, such as an elephant in the case of the mammoth. It could take many pregnancies in practice to create viable offspring from such a method.
Performing the same technique on an egg-laying bird should be less stressful for the donor species. […]
Ben Lamm, the co-founder and chief executive of Colossal, said the company – whose attempts on mammoths and thylacine have not yet produced new animals – was raising a further $150m (£122m) from investors to pursue its research on the dodo. […] He said the research could assist conservation efforts for many other threatened species around the world…”
Sexy eugenics
In Church’s head, a Lunatic Park is already open for business where bare-breasted Neanderthal women hunt mammoths with packs of thylacines while riding velociraptors and dodos, and you can date them all via a proprietary Church app. Yep, he made a dating app.
In December 2019, Gizmodo criticised Church’s eugenics business:
“On Sunday, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a story about Church and his work. The segment begins by showing Church’s researchers handling experiments that use Church’s own DNA. In one such effort, the scientists are trying to grow organs out of Church’s genes. [..]
In the segment that aired on CBS, 60 Seconds called Church “a role model for the next generation” because he “co-founded more than 35 startups.” One of these companies is building a dating app based on ideal DNA pairings. The goal is to screen out sexual partnerships that could create a child with genetic diseases.
“You wouldn’t find out who you’re not compatible with,” Church explained to 60 Minutes. “You’ll just find out who you are compatible with.”
Pelley then asked if Church believed that we could eradicate all genetic diseases if all people planned their breeding based on genetic sequencing.
“Right,” Church confirmed. “It’s 7,000 diseases. It’s about 5 percent of the population. It’s about a trillion dollars a year, worldwide.”
Church’ company is called digiD8 and it’s nothing less but creepy:
MIT Technology Review then explained that it’s not that bad, Church merely wants to prevent hereditary diseases:
“Church says he’s longed nursed the idea of using genetics to prevent disease. One of his inspirations is a Jewish group in Brooklyn, Dor Yeshorim, which tests teenagers in Orthodox communities and then uses the information to help arrange marriages.”
Church wants to arrange marriages, allegedly to prevent diseases. This is already eugenics, but the real purpose of DigiD8 is possibly about offering racists the opportunity to check each other’s genetics for ethnic purity. The company even accidentally betrayed its business model:
“in some cultures people try to marry only within certain castes, clans, or tribes. A job ad posted on the Digid8 website claims the company is pursing an “untapped” market by creating a dating service that uses science to evaluate such “lineal compatibility…”
Ethics was never something the eugenicist Church ever understood. When in 2018 the Chinese geneticist He Jiankui claimed to have created two CRISPR-engineered human babies, the world was in shock. He was immediately arrested and sentenced to 3 years jail (and released in spring 2022).
CRISPRed babies in China: a growing scandal
First gene-edited human babies were allegedly born, two twin girls. Jiankui He, associate professor at the South University of Science and Technology of China claimed to have used CRISPR gene editing technology, in a registered clinical trial, to make babies resistant to HIV. Did this really happen? In any case, everyone now takes distance to…
Back in 2018, Church loved what He did:
“However, one famed geneticist, Harvard University’s George Church, defended attempting gene editing for HIV, which he called “a major and growing public health threat.”
“I think this is justifiable,” Church said of that goal.”
It is worth remembering that from 2005 to 2007 Church used to receive unrestricted funding from the paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein (now deceased). Church also met Epstein after the latter was convinced in 2008 for sex trafficking. As it eventually became known, the billionaire designed a project to “seed humanity” via mass insemination of sex slaves with his own semen and that of academic and other elites, all to take place on some island. One could speculate what the eugenicist Church thought of these plans… Also the literary agent behind Church’s book “Regenesis”, John Brockman, used to be a regular Epstein associate.
Anyway, in 2019 Church eventually apologised for taking Epstein’s money, because of “nerd tunnel vision” and being “vulnerable to flattery and attention“, or maybe because he didn’t expect Epstein’s crimes to become such a public issue.
Thing about Church is: he loves money, because as a rich white alpha male you can never have enough. There is no money trough Church won’t stick his snout in.
Forever young
Let’s talk about BioViva, a US biotech startup which sells “anti-aging” therapies which can be described either as maverick genius or criminally insane, up to you really. Church is remains listed as the company’s “scientific advisor”. In May 2021, STAT News reported:
“Last month, during a talk hosted by the National University of Singapore, the CEO, Elizabeth Parrish, divulged that she was eagerly awaiting data from a human study involving six patients who received an experimental gene therapy. On Friday, she told STAT the procedures were done last year in Mexico.”
The gene therapy these Alzheimer’s patients received was an adeno-associated virus (AAV) carrying the telomerase enzyme TERT, which may have zero effect on rejuvenation but is known to be a potentially cancer-transforming oncogene, which makes those clinical tests even more exciting. Especially because BioViva’s CEO Parrish announced in July 2018 in a lifestyle magazine to have had TERT-AAV injections herself:
“Over a period that lasted well into the night, there would be more than 100 injections, in her triceps and thighs and buttocks and even her face, just below the cheek.“
After all, it worked in mice! Here is the 2018 press release about a BioViva collaboration with the Rutgers University. The recruitment of human customers was announced via a mailing list in 2019. STAT News investigated:
“An FAQ document and sign-up form detailed that the study would be conducted at the Williams Cancer Institute in Mexico City. Participants would have to pay for their own travel. Once there, they would receive a single injection of the telomerase gene construct to “rejuvenate brain cells called microglial cells.” […]
STAT identified three U.S. cancer patients who said they traveled to Mexico for immunotherapy treatments from Williams, after raising money via GoFundMe campaigns to pay for the procedures, which they described as costing between $100,000 and $120,000.”
That sounds hilariously criminal, but paying customer is king, which makes it legal I guess.
Church (even though he acts as board member at least since 2015) educated the public in a 2016 Guardian article that he had no ties to BioViva:
“I wouldn’t call them ties,” he says. “I advise people who need advice and they clearly need advice.”
At least Church knows the BioViva telomerase therapy is dangerous, simply because it is liable to cause cancer, but he apparently loves money and experimenting on humans more than basic ethics:
“I think that’s still an issue with telomerase. I would not sugar-coat that,” said Church. “So I’m not sure it is time for that just yet, but it’s close. It’s extremely close.”
Now you can have the same magic up your nose even, as Parrish and Church informed last year:
Dabbu Kumar Jaijyan , Anca Selariu , Ruth Cruz-Cosme , Mingming Tong , Shaomin Yang , Alketa Stefa , David Kekich , Junichi Sadoshima , Utz Herbig , Qiyi Tang , George Church , Elizabeth L. Parrish, Hua Zhu New intranasal and injectable gene therapy for healthy life extension Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022) doi: 10.1073/pnas.2121499119
“Using CMV as a gene therapy vector we illustrated that CMV can be used therapeutically as a monthly inhaled or intraperitoneally delivered treatment for aging-associated decline. Exogenous telomerase reverse transcriptase or follistatin genes were safely and effectively delivered in a murine model. This treatment significantly improved biomarkers associated with healthy aging, and the mouse lifespan was increased up to 41% without an increased risk of cancer. The impact of this research on an aging population cannot be understated as the global aging-related noncommunicable disease burden quickly rises.”
The study, whose impact on life, the universe, and everything cannot be understated, bypassed proper peer review at PNAS and was “Contributed by George Church”, in his privilege as National Academy of Sciences member. In August 2022, a Correction was issued:
“We are updating our competing interest disclosure about several items to provide further transparency. Reviewer William Andrews currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of BioViva USA, Inc. However, Dr. Andrews did not become associated with BioViva until after the article was accepted for publication and he is solely responsible for having initiated the relationship. Anca Selariu has served as Chief Scientific Officer for BioViva in a volunteer capacity but has never received compensation or equity for this role and has never been an employee of BioViva. Hua Zhu is a Principal Investigator for BioViva and his Rutgers University laboratory receives funding from BioViva for his research but has never been an employee of BioViva.
“George Church’s research contributions were conducted as part of his role as a consultant for BioViva USA, Inc. and not as part of a project administered through Harvard Medical School.”
They will need to issue another correction, for data manipulation:
I have marked only the Merged panels, but the overlap is also visible in the single-channel panels.[…] The magnified cell shown in the Uninfected row appears to be taken from the MCMV row. It shows a darker (less blue) ‘hole’ in the middle that is not visible in the MCMV panels. Similarly, the MCMV magnified cell appears to stem from the Uninfected row.”
Ok, so it is not really surprising that BioViva folks had to forge their data, how else to prove that their bullshit anti-aging treatment works. And Church is part of that fraud.
But there is more. Look who else was and still is listed on BioViva’s board – the cryonics proselytizer Aubrey De Grey. Yes, this disgusting sex predator and pimp who used to be founder and boss of the anti-aging eugenics club for the very rich called SENS Research Foundation. De Grey was kicked out by SENS in 2022 for what seemed to be drug addiction, not for sexual harassment.
The stories of de Grey’s victims are available here and here, quote:
“SENS funded much of my undergraduate and graduate work, and as such I was often paraded in front of their donors. The role of my attractiveness in discussions with donors (almost always older men) was made explicit by SENS executives.
At one such dinner, I was sat next to Aubrey by a SENS executive. I was told to keep him ‘entertained’; Aubrey funneled me alcohol and hit on me the entire night. He told me that I was a ‘glorious woman’ and that as a glorious woman I had a responsibility to have sex with the SENS donors in attendance so they would give money to him.”
According to the victims, de Grey wasn’t the only perpetrator: the practice of sexual harassment and its cover up was normal at the SENS Foundation.
Guess who else is a member of the SENS scientific advisory board? Church of course. How likely is that, like with Epstein, he had no clue of De Gray’s proclivities and still worked with the sexual predator?
However, Church must have figured out that pushing bullshit anti-aging cures to rich old gits might land him in trouble one day. So now he peddles bullshit anti-aging cures to rich old gits’ dogs. Same money almost, no paperwork, and zero risk.
Forever rich
It is about Church’s new business Rejuvenate Bio, established in unofficial collaboration with another anti-aging scammer, David Sinclair – a Harvard professor and a nightmare of a bad scientist.
Never-ageing Anti-aging to cure COVID-19
Scientists David Sinclair and Michael Lisanti have an ingenious solution to COVID-19: anti-aging drugs. If a disease kills old people, stop being old!
Rejuvenate’s founders are Church, his former postdoc Noah Davidson, and a former Wyss Institute employee, Daniel Oliver. National Geographic reported ecstatically in January 2023:
““We view the world like this—we think aging is reversible,” says Daniel Oliver, co-founder and CEO of Rejuvenate Bio, the gene therapy’s developer. “If you are able to affect aging, you should be able to affect multiple age-related conditions.””
Rejuvenate Bio’s RJB-01 therapy is not described in detail, but the company website shows it’s a combo of FGF21 and a soluble TGFb receptor, designed for “cardiac, metabolic, renal, animal health”. There is also a RJB-02 which includes the protein Klotho.
National Geographic tells of Church’s and Davidson’s plans:
“The team created a therapy from each gene and tested them all in mice, one therapy at a time and in two- and three-gene cocktails. In a 2019 paper in PNAS, the scientists reported that a single dose of a two-gene combo mitigated four age-related ailments: type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart failure, and kidney failure.
Rejuvenate Bio, co-founded by Church, Davidson and Daniel Oliver, quickly jumped to tests on dogs.”
The results have not been not reported, but Rejuvenate already “partnered with an animal health company and plans to seek FDA approval for the canine gene therapy“. There are “also plans to recode the gene cocktail for human use“.
In 2020, Church and Davidson joined Sinclair in Nature (Lu et al 2020) claiming that they succeeded to make blind people see using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell reprogramming:
Yuancheng Lu , Benedikt Brommer , Xiao Tian , Anitha Krishnan , Margarita Meer , Chen Wang , Daniel L. Vera , Qiurui Zeng , Doudou Yu , Michael S. Bonkowski , Jae-Hyun Yang , Songlin Zhou , Emma M. Hoffmann , Margarete M. Karg , Michael B. Schultz , Alice E. Kane , Noah Davidsohn , Ekaterina Korobkina , Karolina Chwalek , Luis A. Rajman , George M. Church , Konrad Hochedlinger, Vadim N. Gladyshev, Steve Horvath, Morgan E. Levine, Meredith S. Gregory-Ksander, Bruce R. Ksander, Zhigang He, David A. Sinclair Reprogramming to recover youthful epigenetic information and restore vision Nature (2020) doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2975-4
As reminder, nothing Sinclair says or publishes is trustworthy, rather the opposite. The only clinically relevant thing to come out of this Nature travesty was Rejuvenate’s plan to make money with iPS reprogramming, a method long proven as clinically dangerous due to cancer risk.
An amazing scientific breakthrough was reported by Science in January 2023, under the headline “Two research teams reverse signs of aging in mice“. Church’s company is planning to deploy iPS gene therapy for anti-aging:
“To explore an approach that might lead to a more practical treatment for people, San Diego–based company Rejuvenate Bio injected elderly (124-week-old) mice with adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) carrying genes for three of the factors, collectively known as OSK.
These animals lived another 18 weeks on average, compared with 9 weeks for a control group, the company reported in a preprint on bioRxiv this month. They also partially regained patterns of DNA methylation—a type of epigenetic mark—typical of younger animals. Although some studies have suggested Yamanaka factors can promote cancer, Noah Davidsohn, Rejuvenate’s chief scientific officer and co-founder, says the company has so far found no obvious negative effects in mice given the gene therapy.”
This is Rejuvenate’s preprint, for some reason without Church (maybe that’s why it hasn’t appeared in a peer reviewed journal yet?):
Carolina Cano Macip, Rokib Hasan, Victoria Hoznek, Jihyun Kim, Louis E. Metzger IV, Saumil Sethna, Noah Davidsohn Gene Therapy Mediated Partial Reprogramming Extends Lifespan and Reverses Age-Related Changes in Aged Mice bioRxiv (2023) doi: 10.1101/2023.01.04.522507
Another anti-aging company which board Church sits on is Elysium Health, owned by his MIT colleague and publisher of forged science, Leonard Guarente.
The original sins of Leonard Guarente
“Without specific and credible allegations of research misconduct, MIT is unable to take any action.”
Elysium sells NAD+ supplements patented by Guarente and his former postdoc Sinclair. Next to Church, Elysium’s board has EIGHT Nobel Prize laureates, proof enough that we shouldn’t consider Nobelists as role models for anything, including science.
But then again, don’t believe me. Believe proper science journalists who announced Church’s mammoths to arrive any moment.
Note: most of the above content has been previously published in Friday Shorts
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For Better Science 
When you are up against all that media adulation it is difficult to make a dent.
Are those costly “de-extinction” attempts a front for money-laundering? I am uncertain if they are science.
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Antiaging charlatanism at its finest!
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This is (slightly) off topic, but maybe I can have some insightful input?
I bring this up because G.C. is in the business of selling bullshit and lately, I’ve noticed studies and companies attempting to sell unconventional products, such as the restoration of the gut microbiome. They have shifted their focus from unsuccessful attempts with young blood to exploring the use of young fecal matter. It’s an interesting and somewhat audacious business concept. One can imagine it all started with a bet among elite university academics, saying, “I bet I can convince people to buy actual feces.” Now, there are even FDA-approved products made from human excrement being sold.
Examples:
https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/24/11/9577
https://www.livescience.com/health/medicine-drugs/fda-approves-1st-pill-made-from-human-poop
I’m a simple guy, with a simple mind who likes simple solutions to all problems. So please keep in mind that what follows are my layman ideas about microbiome cures for i.e. alzheimer’s.
The degradation of the microbiome is caused by the aged immune system’s inability to effectively eliminate harmful microbes from the gut. Similarly, conditions like Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are linked to the immune system’s incapacity to clear misfolded proteins and other factors (although I acknowledge it’s a bit more complicated than that). So, how can they claim that ‘rejuvenating’ the microbiome actually cures AD? Swallowing a few fecal pills won’t fix the underlying issue of a failing immune system, right?
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Pah, MDPI.
I had anti-aging shit from Ireland, in Nature Aging:
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Yes, you had. I imagine Nature et al. published quite a few ‘shit’ studies since then. Which kinda explains why searching your site for ‘shit’ turns up 19 pages of results.LOL!
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Hummus has anti-aging properties. Unfortunately I can’t patent hummus.
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All this Brontoshit started with Jack Horner, didn’t it? “We can turn chicken into dinos… we can achieve whatever we want…” a.s.o. That was fifteen years ago, and of course nothing happened since then. I wonder how journalists can still be that stupid and believe all this genetical genesis crap. Is it their Christian-Jewish upbringing?
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Forget about the journalists, what about the editors?
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No, it’s journalism training. Where you are taught that scientists are superhumanly intelligent beings devoid of all sin and malice, and that everyone criticising a scientist (like this Schneider does) is an antivaxxer flat-Earther Nazi.
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It’s even simpler than that.
Journalists’ job is to sell their audiences attention to advertisers via clicks on articles. Anti-Aging topics hit humans core survival instincts. Just like ’10 Tios to survive a bear attack’ and therfore generate more attention to sell.
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Another core survival instinct: eating. While spreading Jack Horner’s dinochicken-fantasies during a talk in 2009, Germany’s colossal W Ulrich Kutschera claimed that McDonalds would be interested in Horner’s upcoming dinomeat resource.
Really. That’s how Kutschera honored Charles Darwin in the “Darwin year” 2009: by brontoshitting a “Studium generale” audience. As far as I know, his “talk” – better: string of superficialities plus nonsense – is still available as an electronic resource in the KIT (Karlsruhe) library. Leonid, if technically possible: please post the McDonalds sequence as additional clip here. It would be one impressive proof more of disgusting old professors lying us all in the face.
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Ah, Ulrich Kutschera, professor at University of Kassel. This sexist homophobe racist git. I was wondering if he is in the AfD already, and indeed, he is.
https://www.die-dezentrale.net/kutschera-verurteilt-wegen-beleidigung/?lang=en
Can you believe the German Bundestag invited him to consult them on race?
https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2021/kw25-pa-recht-rasse-847538
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Completely unbelievable… but ok, the AfD is in the Bundestag. Guess they were happy to invite him.
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re: “Ah, Ulrich Kutschera, professor at University of Kassel”
nope, Ulli K. is not professor anywhere anymore. Kassel University seemed quite happy when he reached legal German retirement age – his official website disappeared within minutes after midnight at the end of his last working day, and sorry, no emeritus status.
His address on recent publications is at i-Cultiver Inc., a “new model platform for strategic acedemic and industry partnerships”, apparently located in San Francisco. On their website, Ulli K. is listed as an “advisor” based at “Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford”. Sadly, I find no trace of him on Carnegie websites. Maybe he isn’t there very often, he’s probably pressed for time given his heroic involvement in the fight against covid lies, vaccination terror, the climate conspiracy, and other humbug cooked up by the liberal elites (see his twitter account for details – but don’t click on the links to his music … just don’t).
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Well, that’s interesting: Ulli K. retired in March 2021 (according to wikipedia). In June 2021, according to the “Liste der Sachverständigen” (see Leonid’s Bundestag-link), he is listed as “Prof. Dr.” Ulli K. – not “Prof. em.”. Obviously he remains “Prof.” for a lifetime.
Like a villain in a Bond-Movie: “Professor never dies”… brontoshitting our poor world forever.
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Well. I’m sure Kutschera sued Uni Kassel and journalists many times and always won.
That’s why he is professor till he dies.
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Seems good ole George is not only a master of re-extinction and synthetic ‘life’ but also a master of burning cash.
George Church spinout GRObio explores strategic alternatives 6 months after $60M series B
https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/george-church-spinout-grobio-explores-strategic-alternatives-months-after-top-vc-backed
Synthetic biology specialist GRO Biosciences started exploring strategic alternatives about six months after raising a series B backed by top venture capital funds, Fierce Biotech has learned.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech conducted a reorganization that included reducing its research staff recently, GRObio confirmed in a statement to Fierce Biotech. The company did not specify the number of employees affected. For a young biotech built on a novel technology platform, research staff members typically make up the bulk of the team.
Several former staffers stopped working at the company in January, a LinkedIn search shows. A co-founder of the firm, principal scientist Benjamin Stranges, Ph.D., was among those departed.
GroBio’s founding CEO Daniel Mandell, Ph.D., and chief scientific officer Christopher Gregg, Ph.D., have also both been removed from the startup’s leadership page.
The sudden downturn comes after the company raised more than $90 million from some top biotech VC shops.
The biotech closed a $60.3 million oversubscribed series B round co-led by Atlas Venture and Access Biotechnology in July 2024. Before that, GRObio had secured $25 million from a 2017 series A co-led by Leaps by Bayer and Redmile Group. Those two funds, plus lead seed investors Digitalis Ventures and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, also participated in the series B.
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So what? The share price will probably go up. They are all winners! Retraction for Jaijyan et al., New intranasal and injectable gene therapy for healthy life extension | PNAS
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Genomics pioneer George Church earns first retraction for anti-aging gene therapy paper – Retraction Watch
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” Church said problems with the figures were “small, possibly accidental and did not affect the conclusions.”
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