Harvard's Charles Lieber, who evaded prison in 2023 due to "incurable" cancer, takes new position at Chinese university

Most of the really dark stuff happens quietly behind the scenes.

Even the headline “Harvard’s former chemistry chair takes new position at Chinese university” is used to bury the story. (Luckily, Toby Rogers doesn’t miss a beat)

https://x.com/uTobian/status/1918543786504020065

Most people have probably never even heard of Charles Lieber. So they probably don’t know why it matters that he’s taking a new position at a Chinese university.

What was Charles Lieber really up to in 2020? What was in the vials? And what is his role in making us "hackable animals?"

In short, Lieber was the Harvard scientist who worked on injectable brain implants and other nanotechnology and was charged with concealing almost $2 million from authorities and lying about ties to Chinese government in January 2020. Here’s the DOJ account.

FactCheck.org (who regularly doth protest too much) quickly reassured us there was no link whatsoever to coronavirus.

Did Charles Lieber and two Chinese students get arrested for creating the virus?

Did Dr. Charles Lieber, chair of Harvard University’s Dept of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, get caught lying to the Dept of Defense about paying money to China surrounding the Coronavirus?

Is the story about federal agents arresting Dr. Charles Lieberman true? It also alleges the Coronavirus started at the location of a biological warfare development lab in China. Is that true?

… While each individual statement of the post is largely accurate, the main takeaway — that Lieber, possibly working with two students, had something to do with the new coronavirus — is false.

In fact, neither Lieber nor the two other individuals, each of whom were charged in separate cases in connection with aiding the People’s Republic of China, have any known link to the new virus. And as we have written before, there is no evidence that the novel coronavirus was engineered in a lab.

(But if you’re not convinced, you can read a different perspective here.)

In any case, Lieber was arrested in 2020 (then placed on paid administrative leave until he retired in February 2023) and was later convicted. On April 26, 2023, he was sentenced to one-day in prison - time served - because he had advanced non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

From The Harvard Crimson:

Lieber’s attorneys previously asked the court in a sentencing memorandum on Friday to spare Lieber from prison with a non-custodial sentence, citing his battle with advanced non-Hodgkin lymphoma…

Lieber is currently in remission, according to a note from his doctor included in the defense’s sentencing memo. The note added that the median duration of remission following Lieber’s treatment is three years and his cancer remains incurable.

…“The last three-plus years have been a truly horrific experience for me and my wife and my children, and I regret the things that brought me here,” Lieber said. “As you have heard, I have lost my job, my career, and my freedom — and I sincerely hope I will not lose what is left of my life given my poor health.”

“I hope that in the future — and this is whatever transpires — that I am again able with whatever life I have left to help young scientists learn to be successful, encourage and support them in their careers, and contribute to science that benefits humanity,” Lieber added.

This would mean Lieber is at least 2 years into an anticipated three-ish year remission with an incurable cancer. I have honestly never heard remission discussed this way - Lieber is apparently both in remission and dying. And he’s starting a new job (almost exactly 2 years after his sentencing) at China’s Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School (SIGS)?

SIGS has also appointed Lieber as a chair professor, which is the university’s highest faculty honour. The school’s vice president, Wang Hongwei, said that Lieber’s appointment ‘will significantly advance materials science and biomedical engineering development at Tsinghua University and Shenzhen, foster in-depth interdisciplinary collaborations between domestic and international research teams, and support the growth of young scholars into world-class scientists’.

The university’s dean, Ouyang Zheng, stated that Lieber’s participation at the university will ‘advance SIGS’s academic excellence and contribute to the establishment of a world-class scholarly community’.

Lieber said that ‘Shenzhen’s dynamism and innovative spirit’ align ‘perfectly’ with his vision to co-create a global scientific hub there.

It sounds a lot like the work he did with China’s Thousand Talents Plan that got him convicted.

Unbeknownst to Harvard University beginning in 2011, Lieber became a “Strategic Scientist” at Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in China and was a contractual participant in China’s Thousand Talents Plan from in or about 2012 to 2017. China’s Thousand Talents Plan is one of the most prominent Chinese Talent recruit plans that are designed to attract, recruit, and cultivate high-level scientific talent in furtherance of China’s scientific development, economic prosperity and national security. These talent programs seek to lure Chinese overseas talent and foreign experts to bring their knowledge and experience to China and reward individuals for stealing proprietary information.

(I’m not sure I believe the “unbeknownst to Harvard University” part.)

Now go back and read about what else Charles Leiber has been up to:

What was Charles Lieber really up to in 2020? What was in the vials? And what is his role in making us "hackable animals?"

I’m going to go ahead an guess that nothing good (for humanity) will be coming out of the Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School/SIGS.

And we should probably keep an eye on them.