Leading anti-aging researcher Aubrey de Grey accused of sexual harassment by two colleagues, including while one was a minor – Endpoints News

Two girls got here for­ward with intercourse­u­al ha­rass­ment al­le­ga­tions towards a promi­nent an­ti-ag­ing re­searcher Tues­day night, ac­cus­ing the sci­en­tist of mak­ing in­ap­professional­pri­ate re­marks whereas serv­ing as their males­tor as his or­ga­ni­za­tion seemed the oth­er manner.

Aubrey de Gray, CSO of the SENS Re­search Foun­da­tion, is al­leged to have en­gaged in preda­to­ry be­hav­ior to­ward Ce­line Halioua and Lau­ra Dem­ing, in­clud­ing whereas Dem­ing was a mi­nor. Halioua and Dem­ing wrote about their ex­pe­ri­ences with de Gray on their Twit­ter ac­counts and per­son­al web­sites, and as­sert­ed they fall in­to a part of a larg­er pat­tern of ha­rass­ment and tox­i­c­i­ty sur­spherical­ing de Gray and SENS.

“There was sort of a intercourse­u­al un­der­cur­hire in each­factor that SENS did,” Halioua stated in an in­ter­view Wednes­day af­ter­midday with Finish­factors Information. “As an in­tern, it was made clear that there was a rank­ing of the at­trac­tive­ness of the in­terns, and I used to be one of many ‘sizzling­ter’ ones.”

She added, “I knew that Aubrey thought I used to be at­trac­tive, and that was made ex­plic­it.”

De Gray de­clined to com­ment be­yond a prolonged Face­ebook de­nial post­ed ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing. In an emailed state­ment, SENS stated it positioned de Gray on advert­min­is­tra­tive depart quickly af­ter it realized of the al­le­ga­tions in late June.

Dem­ing says she first got here in con­tact with de Gray when she was round 14 years previous. As an as­pir­ing sci­en­tist, she emailed sev­er­al promi­nent fig­ures search­ing advert­vice for how you can break in­to the sector, and de Gray was among the many re­cip­i­ents. He served as an in­for­mal males­tor to her, and so they re­con­nect­ed lat­er when he in­ter­considered her for a fel­low­ship professional­gram.

On the age of 17, Dem­ing says de Gray despatched her an in­ap­professional­pri­ate e mail from his work advert­gown, by which he de­tailed his “advert­ven­tur­ous love life,” and advert­mit­ted he had con­sid­ered let­ting their con­ver­sa­tions “stray in that di­rec­tion.”

“I used to be 17, and I as­sumed that I had completed some­factor ter­ri­bly improper” by en­ter­ing the sector at such a younger age, Dem­ing stated in an in­ter­view. In her put up, she added that in­stances like these made her con­sid­er leav­ing the sector on mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions.

4 to 5 years lat­er, Halioua says she was a SENS-fund­ed stu­dent when de Gray made intercourse­u­al re­marks to her at a din­ner with SENS ex­ec­u­tives and donors. She stated de Gray “enjoyable­neled me al­co­hol and hit on me the en­tire night time,” and instructed her she had a “re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to have intercourse with the SENS donors in at­ten­dance so they might give mon­ey to him.”

Halioua had ini­tial­ly joined SENS as a recent­man in col­lege and says de Gray would dis­cuss his intercourse life at work. In her put up Tues­day night time, Halioua fur­ther ac­cused an­oth­er un­named ex­ec­u­tive of ha­rass­ing her so se­vere­ly she dropped out of her PhD professional­gram. She says her com­plaint spurred a le­gal in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which didn’t quantity to a lot.

“It was simply in­ap­professional­pri­ate be­hav­ior for months and months and months, each from a intercourse­ism stand­level and from a ha­rass­ment stand­level,” she stated of the un­named ex­ec­u­tive Wednes­day.

Each Halioua and Dem­ing say they may now not as­so­ciate with de Gray or SENS in any ca­pac­i­ty. Dem­ing wrote she de­cid­ed to come back for­ward now be­trigger she doesn’t have con­fi­dence SENS will act to pre­vent de Gray from ha­rass­ing extra girls within the fu­ture.

“It could be an open se­cret within the longevi­ty com­mu­ni­ty that this can be a prob­lem, however children on the in­ter­internet don’t have ac­cess to that in­for­ma­tion, and Aubrey continues to be males­tor­ing mi­nors,” Dem­ing wrote. “So, we’re mak­ing our ex­pe­ri­ences pub­lic.”

As a part of de Gray’s prolonged Face­ebook de­nial, he con­have a tendency­ed Halioua and Dem­ing have been “arrange” by un­named third par­ties. Whereas de Gray claims there aren’t any oth­er ac­cusers, he wrote: “I’m placing it on the market proper now: if oth­er ac­cusers come for­ward with sup­port­ing ev­i­dence, I’ll step apart a fantastic deal sooner than [New York Gov. An­drew] Cuo­mo simply did.”

However with­within the de­nial, de Gray con­firmed ship­ing the lewd e mail to Dem­ing whereas she was 17, an e mail he stated he wrote “in­advert­vis­ed­ly, for certain, and which I un­re­served­ly re­gret.” He al­so de­nied mak­ing any of the al­leged re­marks to Halioua on the SENS donor din­ner, say­ing fol­low­ing cor­re­spon­dences be­tween him and the girl con­tin­ued for years with­out is­sue.

Nobody who has met Ce­line could be­lieve that she would ever lose con­trol of how a lot she drinks, and most of her ac­cu­sa­tions con­cern­ing that din­ner ap­pear to be of oth­er peo­ple, not of me. It’s in­struc­tive that the very subsequent day she wrote to me with­out the faintest trace of am­biva­lence, ask­ing for advert­di­tion­al feed­again on her pre­sen­ta­tion, and that each one of our ex­modifications, of which essentially the most re­cent was lower than a yr in the past, has been of sim­i­lar­ly un­tar­nished char­ac­ter.

Although the al­le­ga­tions have been pub­li­cized for the primary time Tues­day, each Halioua and Dem­ing not­ed that SENS launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter ear­li­er this yr on­ly af­ter re­peat­ed com­plaints towards de Gray. They claimed of their posts that oth­er anony­mous in­di­vid­u­als had introduced forth tes­ti­monies of phys­i­cal intercourse­u­al abuse to the SENS board towards de Gray ear­li­er in 2021, however didn’t act up­on them.

In its emailed state­ment to Finish­factors, SENS con­firmed it employed an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tor to probe the in­ci­dents when it first realized of them in late June. Ac­wire­ing to SENS’ lat­est tax re­turns, the CSO was mak­ing simply un­der $80,000 in 2018.

We’re conscious of the al­le­ga­tions towards the Foun­da­tion’s Chief Sci­ence Of­fi­cer raised by two mem­bers of our sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty, and, once we first realized of the al­le­ga­tions in late June, we labored fast­ly to re­tain an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tor to in­ves­ti­gate these con­cerns. We fast­ly positioned the em­ploy­ee in ques­tion on advert­min­is­tra­tive depart pend­ing the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. No oth­er al­le­ga­tions have been delivered to SRF man­age­ment.

We re­spect the in­tegri­ty of this in­ves­tiga­tive course of, and it will not be ap­professional­pri­ate to spec­u­late on the out­comes whereas the method re­mains on­go­ing. We are able to promise that we are going to take se­ri­ous­ly the discover­ings and, if ap­professional­pri­ate, take de­ci­sive ac­tion.

Since SENS be­gan its in­quiry, the or­ga­ni­za­tion raised about $25 mil­lion support­ed by de Gray’s fundrais­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties with­out dis­clos­ing the probe, Halioua and Dem­ing wrote.

Re­ac­tions to the information poured in in a single day on so­cial me­dia, with some on Twit­ter say­ing any­one who is aware of de Gray “is aware of that is true.” Oth­ers, similar to in­dus­attempt fig­ure and In­sil­i­co CEO Alex Zha­voronkov, jumped to his de­fense and laud­ed him for his position in sup­port of ladies on Face­ebook, including “in to­day’s tran­si­tionary pe­ri­od of fe­male em­pow­er­ment in acad­e­mia, we have to sup­port fe­males even when they’re improper.”

He was on the board of my first start-up. One in every of my co­founders (male – went again to high school for PhD) and I left be­trigger it was all TED discuss­ery from his crowd.

That is a lot worse than the fo­cus on siz­zle over steak & gen­er­al­ly off vibe I might as­sessed there. https://t.co/3i0b8Cgt­BA

— eliz­a­beth.ai (@eI­iz­a­bethai) Au­gust 11, 2021

Any­one who is aware of him and the peo­ple round him is aware of that is true. Extra want to come back for­ward and inform their sto­ry. https://t.co/c9YvJNB6QF

— PJ Man­ney — Phoenix Hori­zon tril­o­gy com­plete! (@PJ­Man­ney) Au­gust 11, 2021

I be­lieve this lady. Peo­ple have talked about Aubrey de Gray for years and the peo­ple “saved” in his dwelling. I’m not sur­prised to see al­le­ga­tions about mi­nors. The LA par­ties co-at­have a tendency­ed by Pe­ter Ny­gard must be considered crit­i­cal­ly in hind­sight. Vi­ta­lik Bu­terin – what say you? https://t.co/vO1SQxN­Tq7

— Keri Kukral (@kerikukral) Au­gust 11, 2021

Knew this ages in the past however was afraid to say any­factor. https://t.co/f6gKhI291C

— Rachel Hay­wire (@Be­yondThe­Cen­ter) Au­gust 11, 2021

Zha­voronkov clar­i­fied his stance to Finish­factors in an ear­ly Thurs­day e mail, writ­ing he thinks that “the e-mail Aubrey wrote to Lau­ra 9 years in the past was excessive­ly in­ap­professional­pri­ate. And he must apol­o­gize. As for Ce­line — there must be an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. And even when it doesn’t show that Aubrey is responsible, it’s nice that she got here for­ward with that is­sue and we must always en­certain that there are poli­cies in place to professional­tect them.”

Zha­voronkov added he thought the sto­ry was a “huge sur­prise” be­trigger he knew Halioua and Dem­ing have been each shut with de Gray. He wrote that, un­til the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is over, ethical sup­port must be professional­vid­ed to “all par­ties.”

Halioua and Dem­ing are each well-known fig­ures within the an­ti-ag­ing world. Halioua discovered­ed and serves as CEO of Loy­al, a biotech de­vel­op­ing medicine to ex­have a tendency the lifes­pan of canines, whereas Dem­ing is a ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist who runs the Longevi­ty Fund. Halioua had pre­vi­ous­ly served as Dem­ing’s chief of workers.

De Gray co-found­ed SENS — which stands for “strate­gies for en­gi­neered neg­li­gi­ble senes­cence” — in March 2009 with the no­tion that one can sluggish or con­trol the ag­ing course of by advert­gown­ing key dis­eases and re­pair­ing the dam­age that builds up in our bod­ies over time. The foun­da­tion’s re­cent fundrais­er was aimed toward increase­ing re­search ca­pa­bil­i­ties, and people who do­nat­ed re­ceived a cryp­tocur­ren­cy referred to as PulseChain in re­flip.

De Gray gave an in­ter­view as CSO with the Dai­ly Ex­press, a UK tabloid, concerning the elevate in Ju­ly, despite the fact that, ac­wire­ing to SENS’ state­ment, he was placed on depart the month pri­or.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge grad­u­ate isn’t simply out to con­trol ag­ing. At de Gray’s oth­er begin­up, Vien­to, he’s work­ing on tech­nol­o­gy he thinks might en­in a position “im­me­di­ate, tar­get­ed ma­nip­u­la­tion of weath­er pat­terns” via the usage of su­per­com­put­ers and in­fra­struc­ture like wind tur­bines.

For a brief two years, de Gray was VP of latest tech­nol­o­gy and dis­cov­ery at Alame­da, CA-based AgeX Ther­a­peu­tics, which was discovered­ed in 2017 to un­rav­el the “se­crets of hu­man ag­ing.”

The ac­cu­sa­tions towards de Gray come months af­ter Eli Lil­ly oust­ed CFO Josh Smi­ley for ship­ing “con­sen­su­al however in­ap­professional­pri­ate” mes­sages to em­ploy­ees. The ex­ec was compelled to for­feit $24 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion as he walked out the door.

Again in March, Mon­cef Slaoui, for­mer head of Pres­i­dent Trump’s Op­er­a­tion Warp Pace, was boot­ed from his roles at GSK’s Gal­vani, Vax­cyte, and Centes­sa af­ter a probe sub­stan­ti­at­ed intercourse­u­al ha­rass­ment al­le­ga­tions towards him. GSK says he was ac­cused of intercourse­u­al ha­rass­ment and in­ap­professional­pri­ate con­duct to­ward one in every of its em­ploy­ees sev­er­al years in the past.

This ar­ti­cle has been up­dat­ed to in­clude com­ment from Ce­line Halioua and Lau­ra Dem­ing in an in­ter­view on the af­ter­midday of Aug. 11, in addition to advert­di­tion­al com­ment from Alex Zha­voronkov.

Cor­rec­tion: A pre­vi­ous ver­sion of this ar­ti­cle in­cor­rect­ly stat­ed that Halioua ac­cused an un­named SENS donor of ha­rass­ing her so se­vere­ly she dropped out of her PhD professional­gram. She had ac­cused a SENS ex­ec­u­tive.