Scientists come together to face the apocalyptic risks of “mirror life”

The prospect of creating a “mirror life” – synthetic cells made from molecules which are mirror images of those found in nature – is completely hypothetical. However, the potential consequences are so disastrous that experts from around the world come together to discuss how to prevent the worst case.

This week, scientists, engineers, decision-makers and other stakeholders will meet in Manchester, in the United Kingdom, for engineering and the safeguarding of synthetic life 2025. This annual international conference explores the risks, challenges and opportunities for research and construction of synthetic life. Mirror life emerges as a subject worthy of a substantial discussion, because many scientists warn that the creation of such cells could pose unprecedented and irreversible risks for human health and the environment.

“Almost everyone agrees” that mirror image cells would be “a bad thing,” John Glass, a synthetic biologist at J. Craig Vender Institute, told nature. At the same time, some scientists argue that research on mirror life offers potential advantages that should not be ignored. The question is: how should experts regulate this research to maximize these advantages while minimizing the risk?

Why study mirror life?

Most of the biological molecules that constitute life on earth – including all proteins, DNA and RNA – consist on the left or right. These molecules are “chirals”, which means that they cannot be superimposed on their mirror image. Just as your straight glove adapts only on your right hand, the chiral molecules can only interact with other compatible chirality molecules.

Mirror image cells would be built from synthetic molecules with the opposite chirality of those found in nature. While DNA is on the right, Mirror DNA would be left -handed, for example. Scientists are still decades to synthesize a complete mirror image cell, but in recent years, they have created mirror image biomolecules, such as chirally reverse enzymes which can reproduce and transcribe DNA and mirror image RNA.

One of the main incentives for creating mirror image cells is that they could help scientists unravel how chirality has emerged in nature, but the constituent elements of these cells are also promising for bio-engineering and therapeutic discovery of drugs. Researchers think that the enzymes and the body’s immune system would not easily recognize biomolecules in the mirror image, allowing drugs made from them to remain more stable in the bloodstream. The FDA has already approved one of these drugs to treat chronic kidney disease.

What are the risks?

Even these first advances worry certain scientists. The same properties that make these synthetic biomolecules effective because therapies would likely allow mirror image cells to propagate uncontrollable throughout the body or nature.

With the ability to escape immune systems, drugs, predation and viral infections, experts have warned that mirror image bacteria could gradually resume the environment. Scientists can only theorize on the consequences of this worst case, but there are solid evidence to suggest that mirror image bacteria could catastrophically destabilize the environment and present significant risks to human health.

Some believe that these risks justify abandoning the prospect of creating a mirror life. Others argue that well -placed restrictions and guidelines could allow the search to progress without constituting a threat to life as we know it. The question of how to move forward – if at all – will probably arouse a fiery debate during the conference of this week in Manchester.