331
submitted 1 week ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] LostXOR@fedia.io 5 points 1 week ago

Regardless of whether such an organism is a danger, there's no way we can even come close to creating an entire organism with an opposite chirality in just a decade. That would require somehow synthesizing every chiral component of the organism (proteins, enzymes, DNA, etc) from scratch which is completely impossible with current or near future technology.

[-] batmaniam@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

I've been out of synthetic bio for damn near two decades now, and an undergrad when was I even in it, but I'm not so sure. PCR didn't come around until 85. I had professors that used to do every cycle manually. Human genome project wrapped in 03(?). You can order custom oligos for like $0.13USD a base pair mail order now. You type it in on a webform, a machine creates a custom molecule for you, and if you want to pay a little extra you can have it over-night. I suppose it depends what you call "near future", and synthetic biology has always had moving goal posts when it came to "functional liposome" and "synthetic life", but I don't know... shit can move fast sometimes.

this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
331 points (98.3% liked)

World News

39376 readers
2505 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS