Jeffrey Epstein had a bizarre obsession with genetics and "improving" human DNA. The convicted child sex criminal exhibited a fascination with transhumanism, a controversial movement in science and philosophy with a eugenicist mission: using cutting edge technology, including genetic engineering. He tossed [these ideas] around among his shockingly wide network of intellectuals, many of whom communicated with him long after he had pled guilty to child prostitution charges in 2008. The deceased billionaire offered to fund their research and held expensive research conferences and parties. In 2006, he organized a conference on St Thomas in the British Virgin Islands ... attended by luminaries including physicists Stephen Hawking. One attendee recalled that all Epstein wanted to talk about was improving the human genome, and how the passing of certain traits might result in superior humans. Another scientist that Epstein confided with was Martin Nowak, a math and biology professor at Harvard University. In 2003, the billionaire donated $30 million to Harvard to support Nowak's research. "i am so very sorry i caused you so much worry and that i spoilt this day. i am so happy that i did not kill anybody," he wrote in a 2002 email [to Ghislaine Maxwell]. "my perspective of life has changed somehow." In 2014, Epstein sent a cryptic email to Nowak stating, "our spy was captured after completing her mission." Nowak responded: "did you torture her."