The world’s leading scientists have called for a halt to research into creating “mirror life” microbes, citing concerns that the artificial organisms pose an “unprecedented risk” to life on Earth, it has been reported.
An international team of Nobel laureates and other scientists warns that mirror bacteria, made from mirror images of molecules found in nature, can become established in the environment and overcome the immune defenses of natural organisms, putting humans, animals and plants at risk of deadly infections.
Although it will take at least a decade to create a viable mirror microbe, a new risk assessment raised serious concerns about the organisms, prompting the 38-strong team to call on scientists to stop working towards the goal and ask funders to make it clear they are no longer there. Support for research.
“The threat we’re talking about is unprecedented,” said Professor Vaughn Cooper, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Pittsburgh. “Mirror bacteria can evade many human, animal and plant immune system responses and cause deadly infections that spread unchecked all the time.”
The expert team includes US scientist Dr Craig Winter, who led the private effort to sequence the human genome in the 1990s, and Nobel Laureate Professor Greg Winter of the University of Cambridge and Professor Jack Sostak of the University of Chicago.
