Fwd: Joe Thakuria

Hello Joe. I have Jeffrey's accountant on this email as well, Rich Kahn. Jeffrey has told Rich he would like to do a $5000 genetic work up done for the time being. Could you coordinate with Rich regarding payment/next steps?

Thank you,
Lesley
Assistant to Jeffrey Epstein

Hi Lesley and Rich,

Lesley, can you forward the following info to Jeffrey?

So when I sent the initial invoice I didn't have the actual whole genome costs through Illumina which are $9500 for a normal turn around time and $11,400 for "rapid turn around time". The rapid turn around time isn't necessary in Jeffrey's case. And, in my opinion, if the budget is only $5000, I think the most bang for his buck (and this is what I would do for myself with only $5000 to spend) is to get an exome done. I should be able to get this through Ambry and through the same research protocol we'll be using for the YPO study participants for $1000. I would then use the remainder to purchase genome analyses tools (there won't be enough for any servers) to perform secondary analyses on the exome.

The exome only represents around 1.5% of the genome but this is the medically most important part of the genome (at least given our current knowledge) and represents all the coding regions in all our 20,000+ genes.

If this sounds good to Jeffrey, I'll produce a final budget before the end of the week that specifies which of the tools we'll be able to get with the remaining $4000. (I need to finish pricing and tallying up features among the 6 I listed to determine which one(s) will get.

This won't of course cover any cellular work or other items in the full invoice but I would still recommend moving at least some fibroblast cell lines aliquots from the PGP to our new study so we can work on those when funding from other sources is available.

I would also just throw out there for Jeffrey's consideration that the same ambitious protocol for a stripped down clinical next generation DNA sequencing laboratory could be pursued with a similar budget on the commercial side - and I've already been in discussion with others about funding this effort. Having followed this space since 2005 I can say the timing is very good for this type of business right now. Again, it hasn't even been more than a year that this technology has transitioned into clinical care. So if this is something Jeffrey would be interested in pursuing as an investor with an equity stake, rather than as a philanthropic grant for academic research, that would be another route for going ahead with the full project that he may be interested in discussing further.

Rich, I'll leave it to you on how you'd like to handle the $5000 invoice. I could receive this as a lump sum and account for how it is spent. I would expect all of it to be used up before the end of the summer. We can also arrange it so that as the various vendors (sequencing and software) provide invoices, your office pays them directly. Either way is fine with me. I don't have a preference.

Thanks and let me know if I can provide any clarifications. Again, I'll follow up with an invoice capped at $5K before the end of the week (assuming you agree with the above).

Joe Thakuria

Hi Joe...below is Jeffrey's reply:

lets start and do the full genome with rapid turn around. 11, 400

Really?

Ok, done (pending approval through partners/MGH IRB for my formal research study • about 5 weeks as we discussed).

Can we get a little additional software budget for secondary analyses? At least the $4K worth we would have gotten with an exome? The rationale for this is so we don't have to completely rely only "black box" interpretation by Illumina. In my experience, Illumna's genome interpretation has been historically subpar. Not surprising since they are primarily a next gen DNA sequencing instrumentation company • not really focused on analyses and genomic analyses software (though they do have their own). It may be that we don't pull up a lot of extra info with additional software. But we won't know that one way or the other relying only on Ilumina's interpretation.

Anyway, let me know. The budget/invoice is complete if we all we are going after is one item: a rapid turnaround whole genome through Illumina for $11,400. I do think this is the best (highest quality) whole genome you can get for the money but it is disappointing to me that their pricing has been essentially unchanged for years (the reason I expected this to be in the $5K range). I do think I can find a whole genome for around $5K (perhaps through CGI) but again I'd question the quality of that genome. (That was the research rationale for getting 1 from Illumina and 1 from CGI to compare results if the funding were available for this).

Let me know if this needs any further clarification.

Thanks again,
Joe

give him 10k

I think we sent along 10k as well...Bella can you check?