Scientists Discuss Next Steps to Prevent Dangerous 'Mirror Life' Research (msn.com) 85
USA Today has an update on the curtailing of "mirror life" research:
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.
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 in the journal Science in December alongside a 299-page technical report...
[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.
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.
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 in the journal Science in December alongside a 299-page technical report...
[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.
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.
Do antimatter reverse chirality life next! (Score:3, Funny)
Sure fire way to prevent dangerous infections.
Just sayin'
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Sure fire way to prevent dangerous infections.
Just sayin'
depending on the viral load, more like a sure very very large fire way to prevent dangerous infections.
Re: We would be more dangerous to it. (Score:5, 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:5, Interesting)
Re: We would be more dangerous to it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Although on the up side it would pretty much solve global warming. They would consume massive amounts of CO2 and push out O2. Bye bye warming, hello ice age.
Re: We would be more dangerous to it. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: We would be more dangerous to it. (Score:3)
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Like?
Re: We would be more dangerous to it. (Score:2)
Water and carbon dioxide, for example, are perfectly symmetrical molecules.
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They're also not really "the building blocks of life." Amino acids are, but only one of those is non-chiral.
So the most likely situation might be someone manages to create a mirror algae that pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere to produce l-glucose. That could eventually be a problem, if nothing came along that could break down l-glucose. Except some bacteria can already do that. If we had oceans full of the stuff, more than our current excess of atmospheric CO2, it seems pretty likely the already existing gene
75% of article was "DANGER DANGER DANGER" (Score:3)
Reading the story...and picking out the anti-Pulitzer prize phrases...
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
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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
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It's a perfectly symmetric relationship.
Our chirality would be just as dangerous to it, as it is to us.
These organisms sound less dangerous to us (because it's harder for them to digest us) than ones more similar to ourselves (that can eat us)
Bacteria don't kill us by eating us... usually.
Oh (Score:1)
Great.
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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:we're already doing this (Score:4, Informative)
Fortunately, the L-glucose isn't alive. The fear is someone will create a L-e. coli that will destroy all life on Earth.
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Who would mirror life be more dangerous to normal life then normal life is to mirror life?
There's a lot more normal life than mirror life after all.
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Re: we're already doing this (Score:2)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
Wikipedia claims it's a laxative. As most things the body rejects are.
No, we aren't (was Re:we're already doing this) (Score:3)
Go check out the artifical sweetener "L-glucose", it's glucose, but mirrored. It still tastes sweet, but the body can't metabolize it.
No, we are not "already doing this." Period, end of statement. Calling one candy-aisle molecule “already doing this” is a category error, not information. A sugar molecule in an Erlenmeyer flask doesn’t self-replicate, metabolize, or evolve. We are light-years from building a whole cell out of left-handed DNA, RNA, and proteins. Did you even read the report, or are you just indulging in some TL;DR drive-by slashdot snark? To put not too fine a point on your mistaken assertion -- the ver
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the very reason L-glucose passes through us untouched is the same reason a mirror bacterium would likely starve in a right-handed biosphere. Leave the biology to the scientists, and the click-bait distortions to the mainstream press, okay?
As multiple posters have pointed out... there are many varieties of bacteria that can grow using exclusively non-chiral molecules (and/or photosynthesis) as a food source. They don't need to eat amino acids, they can synthesize their own.
You're correct, of course, in saying that there is a big difference between making L-glucose and making an entire mirror organism. But there is a real, end-of-the-world danger here if they were to succeed.
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)
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Executive orders are for emergencies and big-ego-small-skill assholes that are in delusion about themselves.
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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.
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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
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You seem to be entirely unclear what this story is about.
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Feel free to elaborate if you think you can.
Re:Small kids with nuclear weapons. Nice. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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You find out that there is probably no danger at this time if you think about it and do proper risk management. Before that you do NOT know. And that is the problem. The danger is not the research itself in this case, or at least not yet.
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Agreed.
Re: Small kids with nuclear weapons. Nice. (Score:2)
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Talk with them _before_ doing potentially risky research, maybe?
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This is literally a story of risk management taking place during in the planning stages and subsequently putting the project on hold.... But don't let that stop you from pretending to have discovered a horrific lack of risk management.
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:Even scientists can be morons, apparently. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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"?
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the director would have presumably been aware of past pandemics all through recorded history.
Actually the director has said that SARS was one of the models he used while researching for the movie, which no doubt contributed a lot to the realism.
Oh wait, you believed the stuff in 2020 about "unprecedented" and "no one could have seen this coming"?
Not at all. I think we dodged a bullet. There will be more. As you rightly point out, there always are.
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Life imitating art in a not good way.
Or, more probably, art imitating prior art.
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Re: Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
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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: Seriously? (Score:2)
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The phrase "lab leak" sounds less and less crazy all the time, doesn't it now?
Sounds tame compared to Tylenol causing autism. https://www.npr.org/sections/s... [npr.org]
But then again it's the ramblings of an admitted heroin junkie https://www.pbs.org/newshour/h... [pbs.org]
she is left handed. (Score:3)
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.
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if it means I could *finally* find some truly usable scissors... I'd be all for it!
Re: she is left handed. (Score:2)
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As a lefty, I never understood the scissors issue.
When you use a pair of scissors the thumb tends to apply a torque, especially when you hold them tightly. This is because the fingers are pulling one handle closer to the palm and the thumb is pushing the other half away from the palm.
With a RH person using RH scissors this force pushes the two blades closer together, which is fine.
When a LH person uses RH scissors the opposite happens: the thumb tends to make the blades move further apart. This can stop them from cutting effectively.
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Interesting, I have never encountered problem cutting stuff with scissors, whether I hold them in my right or left hand, though most of the time I only cut paper or sticky tape, I guess those materials are easy enough to cut so that there is no problem using scissors in the wrong hand.
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Sounds like 12 Monkeys.
Anyone ever read "Doorways In The Sand"...? (Score:3)
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No worries (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:No worries (Score:4, Funny)
Even if they did manage to make a few of them, they would die of starvation almost immediately.
Only if they are animals. If they are basic plants, all they will need is provided by the sun.
Solar powered death algae are on the horizon.
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I studied organic chemistry, microbiology, and biochemistry. ...
But that was decades ago
I tend to agree with you.
How would they create an organism with the entire chain of biochemical pathways that are mirrored? Think about the Citric Acid Cycle, and how complex it is. All the enzymes and their precursors, and pathways that create them need to be mirrored.
But, it has been a while, so anyone with more current knowledge please correct me.
indigestible (Score:1)
Maybe an evolutionary biologist is logged on? (Score:2)
You forget how "random" ... (Score:3)
... the forming of life and its subsequent evolution is. Yes, you need very specific circumstances for life to form in the first place and - apparently - a quite specific sequence of evolutionary happenstances for intelligent life like us to form, but other than that what happens along the way and where it leads is pretty random. Example: We have some solid evidence that todays birds are the successors to dinosaurs because they are vertebrae with a circular system that runs counter to that of all other vert
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Sidebar... (Score:3)
If you're curious about artificial life, and/or if you're into podcasts... Kate Adamala was a guest on Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcast a while back. The work she's doing is fascinating, she's a great communicator, and he's a great interviewer.
It's one of maybe three or four podcasts that I listened to a second time.
Spock Must Die! (Score:2)
what happens if cells gets released, they hadn't (Score:2)
Chirality Is Not an ELE (Yet) (Score:2)
If you want to worry about chirality, worry about the way headlines get twisted out of shape — because the real inversion here isn’t left-handed vs. right-handed molecules, it’s sober science flipped into clickbait doom. USA Today splashes that mirror life could wipe out humanity, but the technical report says we can’t even make a living cell yet, mirror or otherwise, and early attempts would likely be fragile and lab-bound. They warn that a mirror bacterium could replicate unchecked