Leading scientists have issued an urgent warning of the ‘unprecedented’ threat posed by lab-engineered life to humanity.
So-called ‘mirror life’ is an artificial organism made of mirror molecules found in nature.
Experts warn that these glass organisms will be ‘invisible’ to life on Earth, allowing them to bypass the immune systems of all known organisms.
If glass bacteria could escape the lab, there would be nothing to stop them from settling in the wild and threatening plants, animals, and humans with deadly diseases.
The invention of glass bacteria is ten years away but, in a 300-page technical review published in the Sciencethe authors note that rapid progress is already being made.
A group of 38 Nobel laureates and other scientists, including some who have previously tried to create glass life, now want to stop the new research.
Dr Vaughn Cooper, a biologist at the University of Pittsburgh and a co-author of the paper, said: ‘This type of life has not evolved or evolved, so any biological interactions may or may not work.
‘We don’t want to diminish that promise of synthetic biology, but building glass bacteria is not worth the risk.’
38 leading scientists have issued an urgent warning against ‘glass life’. This is a form of artificial life in which all biological molecules such as DNA are viewed. In the case of DNA, this means that the double helix rotates in opposite directions (stock photo)
Just as your left hand is a mirror image of your right hand, many molecules in nature also have a left and right mirror molecule.
What makes this part so important to biology is that it doesn’t differ from species to species – the molecules that make up all life on Earth have the same hands.
For example, the spiraling double-helix of DNA is right-handed while proteins are made of left-handed amino acids.
However, as far as scientists can tell, the fact that our DNA is right-handed is an evolutionary development and there is no reason that life could not have evolved from the more visible components.
Therefore, even though life in the mirror may not evolve from life as we know it, scientists believe that it is possible to create an organism in which all the molecules of nature are mirrored.
What would make this even more alarming is that life on Earth only evolved to adapt to a single molecular structure.
Co-author Professor Gregory Winter, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist at the University of Cambridge, told MailOnline: “The danger of glass life, especially glass bacteria, is that the organisms may not recognize that their glass counterparts are ‘strange’ and they can’t. natural defenses to protect themselves from attack.
Scientists have called a halt to the development of ‘glass bacteria’ because they can bypass the immune systems of all living things on Earth and cause potentially fatal diseases (stock photo)
‘For example, people have difficulty making antibodies against glass bacteria and are unable to control infections. A similar principle applies to all other organisms, including plants that are affected by glass bacteria.’
Similarly, natural enemies of bacteria also rely heavily on the supply of host molecules to kill bacteria.
This means there is nothing to prevent harmful bacteria from escaping into the wild and breeding unchecked.
The authors wrote: ‘It cannot be said that glass bacteria act as pathogens in the universe, causing serious diseases in a wide range of plants and animals, including humans.’
Even if humans find a way to protect themselves from this new threat, glass bacteria can still disrupt large parts of the Earth’s ecosystem.
Co-author Dr Nicholas Talbot, a plant pathologist and director of Sainsbury’s Laboratory, told MailOnline: ‘It appears that glass bacteria can infect other plants.
‘If large crops were to be endangered, the consequences would be dire – in addition to other consequences.’
The good news is that glass manufacturing technology is still a long way off.
In their paper, the authors note that there have been significant achievements in the production of glass molecules and in the production of artificial cells.
Unlike the world’s most pathogenic bacteria (pictured), there would be no defense mechanism against glass bacteria. Mirror bacteria can also infect any organism regardless of species, which can lead to massive ecological damage and a devastating epidemic.
However, the production of synthetic molecules is very expensive and would require significant advances in molecular biology.
Dr Talbot says: “The technological hurdles to making glass bacteria are significant, so this is probably ten years away, but we were so concerned about the risk that we wanted to start a public discussion long before it became a real threat.’
The researchers want their research to be scrutinized and have concluded that, unless conclusive evidence emerges to the contrary, glass bacteria should not be produced.
Although there are some benefits of glass bacteria, such as the synthesis of natural medicines and medical applications, the authors argue that the risks are not worth it.
Dr Cooper concludes: ‘It would take a lot of effort to create such a species but we need to stop progressing there and have a structured discussion about how we can manage this.’
