The SENS Research Foundation (Mountain View, Calif.), an anti-aging and regenerative medicine nonprofit, has placed the prominent biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey on leave following sexual harassment allegations. The foundation has also retained an independent investigator to review the claims.
The accusations come from Celine Halioua, the CEO of veterinary biotech Loyal (San Francisco) and Laura Deming, the founder of the Longevity Fund (San Francisco).
Halioua and Deming have described their allegations on personal websites. Halioua calls him a “sexual predator,” while Deming reports that de Grey harassed her when she was a minor.
In a Facebook post, de Grey denied the allegations. De Grey stated that the two women “have been deceived into the view that [he has] done many things that [he has] in fact not done.” He continues to theorize that Halioua and Deming “have been set up.”
De Grey vowed if evidence emerges supporting the sexual harassment claims, he will “step aside a great deal faster than [former N.Y. governor Andrew] Cuomo just did.”
Until recently, de Grey had been a notable figure in gerontology and other fields. Known for making outlandish claims, de Grey predicted that the first person to live past the age of 1,000 may already be alive. He also contributed to advancing mathematics related to the Hadwiger–Nelson problem in geometric graph theory.
De Grey is also the vice president of new technology discovery at AgeX Therapeutics (Alameda, Calif.)
Grey also co-founded the nonprofit Methuselah Foundation (Springfield, Va.) in 2003. The organization includes the subsidiary the Methuselah Foundation, which invests in anti-aging startups. Funding recipients of the Methuselah Foundation include 3D bioprinting firm Organovo, Oisin Biotechnologies and Leucadia Therapeutics.
Filed Under: Drug Discovery, Drug Discovery and Development
