Top scientists have called for international action to stop research that could pose an “extreme, potentially existential, threat” to life on Earth. Experts sounded the alarm at an event in Paris over the creation of manufactured “mirror microbes”.
Many of the molecules that are the building blocks of life exist in two forms, each the mirror image of the other. DNA is living organisms is made from “right-handed” nucleotides, while proteins are made from “left-handed amino acids”. Scientists have been exploring what might happen if you create mirror molecules that subvert this natural order.
But some are concerned that such experiments could pose serious risks with devastating consequences for humanity.
In December, more than three dozen scientists — including two Nobel Prize winners — warned that mirror life should never be created.
Speaking at a gathering at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, David Relman, a microbiologist and immunologist at Stanford University told the Financial Times we should be “concerned about the possibility of an extreme, potentially existential, threat”.
He said: “There is a scenario in which a future mirror organism becomes a widely pervasive invasive species and displaces and disrupts many critical ecosystems across the planet — including our own.”
Experts predict that manufactured mirror life is at least a decade away from creation.
Proponents of mirror molecules hope they could provide treatments for chronic and hard-to-treat diseases. But others fear such microbes would be hard to keep contained.
David Bikard, the Pasteur Institute’s head of synthetic biology, said mirror microbes may not turn out be apocalyptic and may have once existed before dying out.
But he added: “The unknowns are large. And I agree that there’s also a scenario where this is a catastrophic event.”