Michael Kay at Undark:
In December, 37 colleagues and I published a paper in Science arguing that mirror bacteria — self-replicating, synthetic cells whose every component exists in its mirror-image form — could indeed pose incredibly grave dangers if successfully created. First, they would likely evade most human, animal, and plant immune system responses because these have evolved to tackle natural bacterial threats, not mirrored ones. That intrinsic resistance could lead to widespread, lethal infections in many species (independent of any other factors that make pathogens dangerous, like toxins they can produce). Second, our world is not overrun with natural bacteria partly because they are kept in check by other organisms, such as viruses and amoebae, that prey on them. To the best of our current knowledge, reversed molecular structures would likely give mirror bacteria significant resistance to these predators, potentially enabling them to grow largely unchecked in a wide range of ecosystems.
We shouldn’t lose sleep, though. Nobody is currently close to creating a full mirror bacterium. No one has even achieved the much simpler feat of creating a natural bacterium from its individual components; doing so in mirror form would be an extraordinarily complex undertaking that could take decades. Our intention in publishing our paper was to kickstart the conversation about the potential risks long before they materialize.
More here.
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