Scientists warn that synthetic MIRROR bacteria represent an unprecedented threat to life.
Due to the possible “catastrophic” harm that created microbes could cause to humanity, coordinated action is required.
Scientists have been alarmed by the existence of “mirror life,” or artificial microorganisms that structurally resemble real microbes and have the potential to surpass human, animal, and plant defenses.
Such artificial beings could “pose unprecedented and largely overlooked risks to much of existing life,” according to a warning issued Thursday by an international team of nearly 40 researchers, including two Nobel laureates.
The sobering message emphasizes how developments in synthetic biology, which have fueled significant advancements in health, may eventually have the potential to accidentally or intentionally create lethal new creatures.
Jack Szostak, a professor in the University of Chicago’s chemistry department and co-winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, stated that “if robust mirror bacteria were created and released into the wild — or escaped from containment — the result could be catastrophic, irreversible damage.”
“It might be much worse than any problem we’ve faced before — and much more than we can handle.”
According to Michael Kay, a biochemistry professor at the University of Utah, mirror life would be the “ultimate invasive species.” “There is a very real chance that this could overwhelm all of the body’s and ecosystems’ natural defenses,” he stated.
In a Science article, Szostak, Kay, and the other researchers state that mirror beings would “constitute a radical departure from known life and their creation warrants careful consideration.” Before technological advancements make mirror life a reality, experts urged worldwide action to address the possibility.
The scientific concept of chirality, or handedness, is at the heart of their anxieties. Although chiral forms of molecules are mirror images of one another, such as human hands, they differ structurally despite having the same chemical makeup.
The researchers contend that because mirror microorganisms are not evolved to cope with them, the cellular machinery of living beings would not be able to handle them. According to the report, mirror bacteria have the ability to circumvent the immune systems of numerous organisms, “potentially causing lethal infections in humans, animals, and plants.”
Because of their work creating nonliving mirror copy proteins, some academics have come to the conclusion that the threat is significant. Because the body’s natural defenses are unable to eliminate these synthetic materials, they may be useful stealth agents against infections like HIV.
However, the authors of the Science article note that the relatively small potential benefits “cannot be justified by the leap from making useful mirror molecules to manufacturing mirror bacteria.”
Although mirror creatures could be employed as bioweapons, scientists warn that the much greater risk is an unintentional spill from a laboratory into the environment. Since many current medications are meant to fight the natural forms of bacteria, they are likely to be unsuccessful, much like the human immune system.
When asked to support the warning in the Science paper, Vaughn Cooper, a professor of microbiology at the University of Pittsburgh, said his initial thought was “incredulity that mirrors life could be dangerous.” After observing the quick development of supporting technologies, he had second thoughts and estimated that the development of viable living mirror cells might occur within ten years.
He said that it was “essentially pointless” to invest in countermeasures to mimic life, saying, “Fortunately, we have time collectively to develop guidelines and hopefully place coordinated global limits on certain types of enabling technologies.”
“The planet cannot be inoculated against mirror bacteria because our immune systems cannot detect them,” he stated. “All life forms would be impacted, either by infection or by their outcompeting them.”
The mirror threat arises as regulators struggle to keep up with the rapidly growing potential of synthetic biology, which is being enabled by artificial intelligence. Models like the Tianjin Biosecurity Guidelines, which were developed in 2021 by eminent international research institutions, are recommended for consideration by the authors of the Science article.
The finding in recent years that the ubiquitous bacterium E. coli may grow by ingesting food sources that do not have a certain handedness is a key component of the mirror life problem. The idea that mirror bacteria would be essentially unviable due to their inability to consume the chirally specific nutrients that often support their natural counterparts was disproved by this.
According to Professor Eörs Szathmáry, an evolutionary biology professor at Eötvös University in Budapest, Hungary, mirror bacteria may still be limited in what they can feed, but the overall threat remains serious.
Szathmáry, who did not contribute to the scientific research, stated that mirror bacteria might cause a great deal of damage. “A terrible surge of infections could occur if they escape from a lab.”