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‘Unprecedented risk’ to life on Earth: Scientists call for halt on ‘mirror life’ microbe research (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 5 days ago by MicroWave to c/world

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Summary

Leading scientists, including Nobel laureates, are urging a halt to research on creating “mirror life” microbes, citing “unprecedented risks” to life on Earth.

Mirror microbes, built from reversed molecular structures, could evade natural immune systems, leading to uncontrollable lethal infections.

While mirror molecules hold potential for medical and industrial uses, researchers warn that mirror organisms could escape containment and resist antibiotics.

A 299-page report in Science advocates banning such research until safety can be ensured and calls for global debate on its ethical and ecological implications.

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[–] batmaniam 3 points 5 days ago

Jumping in down here. I agree with you entirely that racemic mixes are a very different ball than mirror organisms; it's been a known thing for a long time, and while I'm not positive, I'd be very surprised if FDA testing didn't include different chiralities of both the original compound and metabolite.

That being said, there's nothing to say one version of a chiral protein can't behave like a prion. I don't know of any evidence where we've seen it happen either, though. There's also potentially the issue of partial bonding. Not every domain on every protein is chiral. If a mirror protein has some domains that bind but other functional domains that are incompatible, you could see it incorporated into complex that either 1) are now non-functional or 2) have alternate folding that behaves similar to prions.

Again though, I can't point to any evidence of that. You can do the arrow pushing that shows how you get tetrodoxin from the stuff in your tea or coffee, it doesn't mean it's actually going to happen beyond the statistical realm interesting only to quantum physicists.

Just chiming in because your comments are level headed and you've clearly got some knowledge in the area and appreciate the discussion. Looking forward to digging into the report this weekend, I had no idea this was even something are even attempting!