Scientists Discuss Next Steps to Prevent Dangerous 'Mirror Life' Research (msn.com)
- Reference: 0179067432
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/09/07/1510215/scientists-discuss-next-steps-to-prevent-dangerous-mirror-life-research
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-fear-microscopic-mirror-life-could-wipe-out-humanity/ar-AA1LzXx7
> Kate Adamala had been working on something dangerous. At her synthetic biology lab, Adamala had been taking preliminary steps toward creating a living cell from scratch with one key twist: All the organism's building blocks would be flipped. Changing these molecules would create an unnatural mirror image of a cell, as different as your right hand from your left. The endeavor was not only a fascinating research challenge, but it also could be used to improve biotechnology and medicine. As Adamala and her colleagues talked with biosecurity experts about the project, however, grave concerns began brewing. "They started to ask questions like, 'Have you considered what happens if that cell gets released or what would happen if it infected a human?'" said Adamala, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. They hadn't.
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> So researchers brought together dozens of experts in a variety of disciplines from around the globe, including two Nobel laureates, who worked for months to determine the risks of creating "mirror life" and the chances those dangers could be mitigated. Ultimately, they concluded, mirror cells could inflict "unprecedented and irreversible harm" on our world. "We cannot rule out a scenario in which a mirror bacterium acts as an invasive species across many ecosystems, causing pervasive lethal infections in a substantial fraction of plant and animal species, including humans," the scientists wrote in a paper published [2]in the journal Science in December alongside a [3]299-page technical report ...
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> [Report co-author Vaughn Cooper, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies how bacteria adapt to new environments] said it's not yet possible to build a cell from scratch, mirror or otherwise, but researchers have begun the process by synthesizing mirror proteins and enzymes. He and his colleagues estimated that given enough resources and manpower, scientists could create a complete mirror bacteria within a decade. But for now, the world is probably safe from mirror cells. Adamala said virtually everyone in the small scientific community that was interested in developing such cells has agreed not to as a result of the findings.
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> The paper prompted nearly 100 scientists and ethicists from around the world to gather in Paris in June to further discuss the risks of creating mirror organisms. Many felt self-regulation is not enough, according to the institution that hosted the event, and researchers are gearing up to meet again in Manchester, England, and Singapore to discuss next steps.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-fear-microscopic-mirror-life-could-wipe-out-humanity/ar-AA1LzXx7
[2] http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads9158
[3] https://doi.org/10.25740/cv716pj4036
Re: We would be more dangerous to it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not quite. The concern is that they will metabolize the non-chiral building blocks of life into mirror compounds that our metabolic mechanisms can't break down or clear out. It's symmetric if there's parity in numbers. It's very much asymmetric at the actual starting point where there's lots of building blocks, lots of us, and a small amount of it.
Re: We would be more dangerous to it. (Score:3)
I think the far greater risk, that these experts all understood without having to spell it out, is the basic chemistry risks that infected organisms would be unable to defend against reverse-chirality bacteria. Antibodies almost always depend on the chirality of the proteins they are built to recognize. It's probably chemically impossible for our bodies to produce reverse-chirality antibodies. And similar with a large proportion of antibiotic drugs.
Re: (Score:2)
> Not quite. The concern is that they will metabolize the non-chiral building blocks of life
Like?
Re: We would be more dangerous to it. (Score:1)
Water and carbon dioxide, for example, are perfectly symmetrical molecules.
75% of article was "DANGER DANGER DANGER" (Score:2)
Reading the story...and picking out the anti-Pulitzer prize phrases...
[1]https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... [msn.com]
Scientists fear microscopic 'mirror life' could wipe out humanity - Story by N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY - 9/7/2025
- working on something dangerous.
- one key twist
- create an unnatural mirror image of a cell
- talked with biosecurity experts
- grave concerns began brewing.
- brought together dozens of experts
- could inflict "unprecedented and irreversible harm" on our world.
- acts as an invasive species
- ca
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-fear-microscopic-mirror-life-could-wipe-out-humanity/ar-AA1LzXx7
Re: (Score:2)
It's not at all symmetric. Any organism with normal chirality is born into a world teeming with chiral building blocks, from amino acids and nucleic acids through sugars like glucose to things like ATP. If you want to do stuff you just need to pick up the bits you need and go for it. It's like a survival reality show where they give you unlimited food, tools and instructions.
An organism with opposite chirality would be let loose into a barren world. Like a survial show where they drop you naked in Antarctic
Oh (Score:1)
Great.
we're already doing this (Score:5, Informative)
Go check out the artifical sweetener "L-glucose", it's glucose, but mirrored. It still tastes sweet, but the body can't metabolize it.
Re: (Score:2)
Fortunately, the L-glucose isn't alive. The fear is someone will create a L-e. coli that will destroy all life on Earth.
Small kids with nuclear weapons. Nice. (Score:2)
Clearly an education failure if people doing this type of research do not do competent risk management. Or, as it sounds, no risk management at all. Looks like we need a ton more regulation and the occasional bright-eyed clueless scientist going to prison.
Re: Small kids with nuclear weapons. Nice. (Score:2)
Be careful what you wish for, an executive order against "subversive research" would not be totally unexpected given how things are going right now. But I don't know that it would throw the people you want in jail...
Re: (Score:1)
> Clearly an education failure if people doing this type of research do not do competent risk management. Or, as it sounds, no risk management at all. Looks like we need a ton more regulation and the occasional bright-eyed clueless scientist going to prison.
It's almost as if "lab leaks" are possible ... with these fine guardians of science at the wheel.
> "They started to ask questions like, 'Have you considered what happens if that cell gets released or what would happen if it infected a human?'" said Adamala, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. They hadn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, lets give smart people even more reason to go into finance instead of science. Its been working out so well for the past 50 years. /s
Re: (Score:2)
A nice alarmist conclusion from a nice alarmist article.
Nobody is particularly close to making a regular synthetic organism from scratch, never mind a completely new mirror one. This research is still biochemistry experiments, not biology.
Even research to make small modifications to regular organisms is the subject of elaborate review processes, and they get more elaborate the closer you get to making something dangerous.
Even scientists can be morons, apparently. (Score:4, Funny)
> "They started to ask questions like, 'Have you considered what happens if that cell gets released or what would happen if it infected a human?'" said Adamala, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. They hadn't.
Do these people not watch any TV shows? Just screwing around in their lab, apparently not a care in the world, and not once they any of them wonder what would happen if something went wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
> Do these people not watch any TV shows? Just screwing around in their lab, apparently not a care in the world, and not once they any of them wonder what would happen if something went wrong.
I recently re-watched Steven Soderbergh's 2011 film Contagion. The prescience of that movie is mind blowing. It's like a documentary on the COVID pandemic filmed a decade before it actually happened. Life imitating art in a not good way.
Re: (Score:2)
2011 would have been in the middle of the MERS outbreak, and not long after the original SARS-CoV-1 in 2001, and the director would have presumably been aware of past pandemics all through recorded history.
Oh wait, you believed the stuff in 2020 about "unprecedented" and "no one could have seen this coming"?
Re: Seriously? (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously, back at you. As you just quoted, they absolutely DID stop and consider the risks. Early, rather than late. The article describes what would seem a very best practice for such consideration. Openly, transparently, and in concert with many other experts. Sheesh!
Re: (Score:1)
> Seriously, back at you. As you just quoted, they absolutely DID stop and consider the risks. Early, rather than late. The article describes what would seem a very best practice for such consideration. Openly, transparently, and in concert with many other experts. Sheesh!
They literally admitted that they had not. It's in the quote ...
Re: (Score:2)
> The phrase "lab leak" sounds less and less crazy all the time, doesn't it now?
Sounds tame compared to Tylenol causing autism. [1]https://www.npr.org/sections/s... [npr.org]
But then again it's the ramblings of an admitted heroin junkie [2]https://www.pbs.org/newshour/h... [pbs.org]
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/09/06/nx-s1-5532143/hhs-responds-to-report-about-autism-and-acetaminophen
[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/recounting-heroin-addiction-and-spiritual-awakening-rfk-jr-urges-focus-on-prevention-and-community
she is left handed. (Score:2)
Has anyone important asked her if this was the sole reason for this research? Presumably a reversed genome would make lefties the dominant variant... which is the last thing we need, especially if it turns out to be fatal to existing humans, only benifits the sinister.
Re: (Score:2)
if it means I could *finally* find some truly usable scissors... I'd be all for it!
Tomorrow's news: (Score:1)
Downtown Minnesota wet market is the suspected source for the release of reversed chirality bacteria.
In other totally unrelated news, there was a a serious fire at the University of Minnesota biology lab which destroyed thousands of lab records.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like 12 Monkeys.
Do antimatter reverse chirality life next! (Score:1)
Sure fire way to prevent dangerous infections.
Just sayin'