‘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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Because when you discover something exceptionally dangerous the best approach is to halt research? To purposefully deprive yourself of understanding what it is and how it works and effects and interactions? Wouldn't you want more research, just under more strict protocols?
Do you assume these scientists are fearful anti-intellectuals, like a gaggle of Covidiots or something? If you read the article, you'll find that
The expert group includes Dr Craig Venter, the US scientist who led the private effort to sequence the human genome in the 1990s, and the Nobel laureates Prof Greg Winter at the University of Cambridge and Prof Jack Szostak at the University of Chicago.
These aren't idiots, and their call came from a risk assessment performed by experts in their fields.
While enthusiastic about research on mirror molecules, the report sees substantial risks in mirror microbes and calls for a global debate on the work. link to the 299-page report
Beyond causing lethal infections, the researchers doubt the microbes could be safely contained or kept in check by natural competitors and predators.
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Dr Kate Adamala, a synthetic biologist at the University of Minnesota and co-author on the report, was working towards a mirror cell but changed tack last year after studying the risks in detail.
“We should not be making mirror life,” she said. “We have time for the conversation. And that’s what we were trying to do with this paper, to start a global conversation.”
“Unless compelling evidence emerges that mirror life would not pose extraordinary dangers, we believe that mirror bacteria and other mirror organisms, even those with engineered biocontainment measures, should not be created,” the authors write in Science.
“We therefore recommend that research with the goal of creating mirror bacteria not be permitted, and that funders make clear that they will not support such work.”
World-leading scientists have called for a halt on research to create “mirror life” microbes amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an “unprecedented risk” to life on Earth.
I'm not saying the scientists involved are idiots, but the reporting on this seems to be ban now and ask questions later.
Well, yeah. Ban now, run simulations to ask and answer questions later.