‘Unprecedented risk’ to life on Earth: Scientists call for halt on ‘mirror life’ microbe research
‘Unprecedented risk’ to life on Earth: Scientists call for halt on ‘mirror life’ microbe research
Experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could put humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections
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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Yeah, knowing how fucky simple protein molecules can get when you flip the chirality (prions, which are essentially the root cause of Alzheimer’s and CJD and a few other neurodegenerative conditions), making whole-ass microbes on that principle without understanding what that could even mean sounds like a WILDLY insane idea.
Not to nit but we absolutely do not know the root cause of Alzheimer’s disease. Not that prions are good or anything.
Yeah, sorry, didn’t mean to imply that’s all that is going on with Alzheimer’s, but I was under the impression that prion formation/presence in neurological tissue was extremely highly correlated with the condition, though the precise mechanism of their effects aren’t yet well understood. Then again, I haven’t seriously looked into that stuff since my grandfather passed from it a while ago.
Sorry about your grandfather. There's probably more than one mechanism for alzeimers (not an expert), but amaloyid plaque formation, which is definitely A way to develop alzheimer's, is indeed a prion like event. I'm not sure if "prion" has some hyper-precise definition but the ideas similar: you get one amalyoid protein that misfolds, and acts as a nucleation site misfolding and agglomerating others.
As always, some people see Jurassic Park as inspiration and wonder why nobody gave Hammond a chance.
The rest of us know that Dr. Malcolm was right from the start.
To be fair, whoever designed that park was a moron.
That’s what you get when you treat your IT like crap and only hire one person.
Newman didn't built the park though. If you require power for the park to not fall apart immediately, you've already lost.
Remember that whole movie happens in one night. T rexes breaking confinement the moment the fence isn't electrified means some engineer fucked up big time.
I mean IT people just sit around all day on the computer anyway
Ok. THANK YOU. I also have to say my biggest issue with the newer one (I forget which) is when the parks going to hell, and the park director just decides to go off into the jungle. Like outside of just design of the park, there is NO way you don't have rigid protocols in-place. Like you read about half the crap Disney does/can do at their parks... there's no way the head of the park just goes "oh you guys got this, I'll be back at some point, just do your best".
Like if ONLY for the reason it would be a known PR disaster for something that in universe already had PR disasters... that shit would have been drilled in since day -1000. It's my biggest issue with the writing because it's not even sci-fi.
/end rant.
Yeah, people in real life won't be morons, so that would never happen to us. I'm sure the company giving us the lowest bid has probably found some heretofore unknown innovation in efficiency. The end result will be just as good, but way cheaper...
Jurassic Park at least makes sense because dinosaurs are cool.
Opposite-chirality microbes, though? Nobody asked for that.
Prions aren't a chirality issue, they're a folding issue
Prions are comprised of right-handed amino acids. I don't think it's the same thing to flip the chirality of a molecule as to flip the chirality of its subcomponents. DNA is usually right-handed, but there are left-handed forms created naturally. They don't suddenly annihilate their counterparts in antimatter-like collisions.
There are natural pharmaceuticals that consist of both chiralities, and obviously plenty of synthetic ones.
It's really not that simple. If we want to think about it longer, fine by me. But what is the real threat level?
Edit: As others have pointed out, prions also aren't an example of a different chirality of the native protein. The issue with prions is they can convert the native protein to their form, which "reproduces" themselves to make the disease progress. Mirrored organisms will propagate the chirality of their components, but their components don't inherently convert their enantiomers once that organism is dead.