The scientist who headlined the Jenova Project. After his departure, Professor Hojo took over and the project turned down a dark path of twisted experimentation. Professor Gast led the expedition that discovered the alien being, named Jenova, encased in a crystalline cavern in the Northern Crater. The team consisted of Professor Hojo, Professor Gast, Hubert Bugenhagen, and Grimoire Valentine. They mistakenly believed that they had found a frozen Cetra, a higher being long since extinct that could speak to the Planet and gain wisdom from the use of Materia shards. Jenova was excavated and brought south to the Nibel Mountains for storage inside the Mako reactor that had recently been completed there. The being's cells were extracted and found to have enhancing properties.

President Shinra heard of their findings and sensing that great power could come from this, he brought on more scientists; Dr. Hollander, Dr. Lucrecia Crescent, and Dr. Gillian Hewley, thus the Jenova Project was born. Hojo and Hollander had wildly different theories and so they worked individually on their own ideas. Hojo’s team consisted of Gast, Grimoire, and Dr. Lucrecia Crescent. They set up in the Nibelheim mansion on the outskirts of town. Hollander’s team was much smaller with only himself and Dr. Gillian Hewley. They set their lab up in Banora village. Both locations had very high concentrations of Mako energy which was key to their experimentation.

Project S, led by Hojo and Gast was deemed a success with the birth of Sephiroth. Project G under Hollander was deemed a failure, with only Angeal showing any signs of the traits of Jenova. Bugenhagen found the experiments inhumane and left the Company. It wasn’t long after that Gast was made aware that Jenova was not a true Cetra. Bugenhagen had warned the team against injecting the mysterious being’s cells into the embryos, but it wasn’t until Gast met Ifalnia Aldane that he realized that the scientists were gravely mistaken. She told him of Jenova’s true origin, a calamity that fell from the sky and attempted to assimilated the Cetra. At great cost to themselves, they sealed Jenova away in the Northern Crater cavern and there it stayed until discovered by the expedition team.

Hojo found out about the existence of Ifalnia and her claims that she was descended from the real Cetra. Gast took her north to Icicle to hide. He learned more about her, recording her recollections and over time, the two fell in love and had a daughter. But just when things were beginning for the new family, Professor Hojo tracked them down, and on word from President Shinra, he murdered Professor Gast and took Ifalnia and her daughter, Aerith, back to Shinra headquarters in Midgar.