George Church

George Church is the Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and a professor of health sciences and technology at Harvard and MIT, as well as a founding core faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, according to his official Wyss Institute profile. A pioneer in genomics and synthetic biology, the same source notes that in 1984 he developed the first direct genomic sequencing method, that he helped initiate the Human Genome Project, and that his laboratory’s work has been the basis for a number of biotechnology companies. He drew scrutiny in connection with Jeffrey Epstein over research funding and meetings, for which he publicly apologized in 2019.

Connection to Epstein

In an August 2019 interview with STAT News, Church said Epstein had contributed unrestricted funding to his lab from 2005 to 2007 for early-stage projects; neither STAT News nor his later 60 Minutes interview specified a dollar amount. Church confirmed to STAT News that he had six phone calls and meetings with Epstein in 2014, citing his own online calendar, including an entry he described as a June 21, 2014 lunch with Epstein at Martin Nowak’s institute, and he said he had met with Epstein several times in the years since.

According to an NBC News investigation of Church’s calendar, the six 2014 contacts included an April 22 in-person meeting, an April 23 phone call, the June 21 lunch, a September 12 phone call, an October 21 teleconference, and a November 30 dinner with Epstein alongside Joi Ito, Reid Hoffman, and Martin Nowak at Nowak’s institute in Cambridge. All of these documented meetings took place in 2014, years after Epstein pleaded guilty and registered as a sex offender in 2008.

After Epstein’s 2008 conviction, Harvard stopped accepting gifts from him. Harvard’s 2020 report on Epstein’s connections to the university states that “in 2008, shortly after taking office as President, Drew G. Faust was asked to consider a new gift from Epstein” and, after being briefed on the allegations against him, “she determined that Harvard should no longer accept gifts from him.” The Boston Globe reported that this decision “wasn’t clear to some faculty and fund-raisers within Harvard who continued to lobby administrators over the years to take money from Epstein.”

Public statements

Church told STAT News, “I certainly apologize for my poor awareness and judgment,” and reflected that scientists “should have been more conversations about, should we be doing this, should we be helping this guy? There was just a lot of nerd tunnel vision.” He said he had read “a couple of news articles” about Epstein’s 2008 conviction but that they “weren’t clear enough for me to know there was a serious problem,” and, asked about Epstein’s reported interest in establishing a eugenics program, said, “I never heard anything about it.” In a December 2019 interview with 60 Minutes, Church said he had met Epstein “at meetings with other scientists,” called the association “unfortunate,” and, asked whether he regretted taking the money, replied, “I regret not knowing more about the donor,” adding that “you don’t always know your donors as well as you would like.”

Is George Church in the Epstein files?

Yes. George Church is among the Harvard scientists named in connection with the Epstein records. His lab received unrestricted research funding from Epstein between 2005 and 2007, and his own calendar documented six meetings and calls with Epstein in 2014, as reported by NBC News. Church publicly apologized in 2019 for his contacts with Epstein, telling STAT News that he apologized for his “poor awareness and judgment.” Being named in these records is not in itself evidence of wrongdoing; the documented connection is the research funding and the meetings, which Church has acknowledged and addressed publicly.

Documents

Primary-source records that name or reference George Church. Inclusion in these documents is not, by itself, evidence of wrongdoing; Church has acknowledged the funding and meetings and apologized publicly.

• Giuffre v. Maxwell — unsealed court records (Jan. 2024) — In a declaration unsealed in this civil case (U.S. District Court, S.D.N.Y., No. 1:15-cv-07433), Alan Dershowitz lists Church among the academics “associated with Mr. Epstein” — naming “Larry Summers, Stephen Hawking, Henry Rosovsky, Nathan Myhrvold, Steven Pinker, Martin Nowak, Daniel C. Dennett, David Gergen, George Church, Richard Dawkins” and others — in an argument that mere association with Epstein implies nothing. No allegation against Church appears in the filing.
• DOJ Epstein Files (full release) — Church is among the Harvard faculty named in the Justice Department records released on January 30, 2026, as reported by the Harvard Crimson, Axios, and CNN; the records include email correspondence and documentation of funding Church received from Epstein or his associates.