Jamie Metzl

Metzl calls himself a lifelong Democrat; he served President Bill Clinton on the National Security Council, worked for Madeleine Albright at the State Department, and was deputy staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Joe Biden was chairman.⁠[1]

He was director for multilateral and humanitarian affairs on the National Security Council and senior coordinator for international public information at the State Department, and also served as a human rights officer for the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia.⁠[2]

Metzl, who grew up in Kansas City, moved back from Washington to Missouri’s 5th district in summer 2003 to challenge Democratic Rep. Karen McCarthy; after she announced her retirement, former Kansas City Mayor Emanuel Cleaver entered the race as the primary favorite.⁠[3]

In the primary Metzl raised $905,000 to Cleaver’s $589,000 and attacked Cleaver over unpaid taxes at a car wash he owned; Cleaver said local politicians had never seen such persistent attacks.⁠[4]

In the August 2004 primary, Cleaver defeated Metzl, a first-time candidate, by 60 percent to 40 percent.⁠[5]

In 2014 Arcade published his novel Genesis Code, which deals with human genetic enhancement amid a future US–China rivalry. At the time he was a principal of the investment company Cranemere and a senior fellow of the Asia Society, where he had been executive vice president.⁠[6]

In February 2019 he was appointed to the World Health Organization’s expert advisory committee on developing global standards for the governance and oversight of human genome editing.⁠[7]

In April 2019 Sourcebooks published his nonfiction book Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity.⁠[8]

Physicist Marcelo Gleiser wrote that the book addresses with clarity and urgency how gene editing could rewrite human evolution, but worried that its call to apply our best values to the genetic revolution might be hopelessly naive.⁠[9]

On April 16, 2020, he posted on his website that the most likely starting point of the pandemic was an accidental leak from a Wuhan virology institute, stressing that this was a hypothesis, as was a natural spillover. He later co-organized and was lead drafter of four expert open letters on COVID-19 origins.⁠[10]

At a February 9, 2021 press conference in Wuhan, the joint WHO–China expert team said a laboratory origin was “extremely unlikely.” Metzl issued a statement condemning the conclusion and called the press conference a farce; he said he supports the WHO but urged China to open its records for a full, transparent investigation.⁠[11]

In June 2021 he said on television that the few people who raised a possible lab leak early in 2020 were labeled “conspiracy theorists,” himself included; he said he was not a right-winger but a progressive Democrat and that the origins question is neither left nor right.⁠[12]

He also cited the case of six miners who fell ill in 2012 after clearing bat guano in an abandoned copper mine in southern China, where Wuhan Institute of Virology teams later collected samples including bat coronaviruses; he argued such samples could have seeded the pandemic through a lab accident.⁠[13]

On December 8, 2021, he appeared on episode 247 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, introduced as an author specializing in genetic engineering, biotechnology and geopolitics, discussing the lab leak hypothesis, gain-of-function research, Anthony Fauci, Francis CollinsFrancis CollinsFrancis Collins is an American physician-geneticist who directed the National Human Genome Research Institute from 1993 to 2008, leading the international Human Genome Project, and served as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 2009 to 2021; he is also known for books arguing that science and religious faith are compatible and received the 2020 Templeton Prize.Open the full entry, Xi Jinping, the WHO, government transparency, the future of reproduction and ultramarathons, among other topics.⁠[14]

On March 8, 2023, he testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that there was no smoking gun proving a lab origin but that growing circumstantial evidence suggested “a gun that is at very least warm to the touch,” accusing China’s government of destroying samples and hiding records. China has denied the lab-leak hypothesis and denied refusing to cooperate with the WHO’s study.⁠[15]

At the same hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin and other Democrats blamed the lack of answers partly on former President Donald Trump’s praise of Xi Jinping and lack of a national strategy; members of both parties said many facts remained unavailable because China blocked access.⁠[16]

After the hearing he said the US Department of Energy’s shift from favoring a natural origin to favoring a lab origin was significant; he recalled that prominent letters in The Lancet and Nature Medicine in February and March 2020 had called people like him conspiracy theorists.⁠[17]

On June 11, 2024, he published Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World (Timber), on the triple revolution in genomics, biotechnology and AI, proposing a new international agency operating through the UN to coordinate regulation. Kirkus Reviews called it “An important book.”⁠[18]

In 2025 he was appointed a commissioner of The Lancet Commission on Precision Medicine, which is expected to report in 2028. He also helped establish and serves as special strategist for the WisdomTree BioRevolution exchange-traded fund.⁠[19]

On April 21, 2026, The AI Ten Commandments: A New Moral Code for Humanity, written with the AI system GPT-5, was published, drawing on historical, philosophical and religious traditions to set out ten principles for an era of humans and AI.⁠[20]

On October 11, 2026, he posted an essay urging the Democratic Party to break with radicals in its ranks such as the Democratic Socialists of America, while criticizing the Trump administration for undermining democratic institutions.⁠[1]

He is a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council and a Singularity UniversitySingularity UniversitySingularity University is a technology and leadership education organization founded by Peter H. Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil. It offers short executive programs, organizational training and support for entrepreneurs, focusing on rapidly developing technologies and their social and business implications.Open the full entry faculty member, and founded and chairs the global interdependence movement OneShared.World.⁠[21]

Personal website: Public link: https://jamiemetzl.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[14]

X: Public account: https://x.com/JamieMetzl (opens in a new window)⁠[14]

OneShared.World: Official website: https://oneshared.world/ (opens in a new window)⁠[19]