Biology’s “Mirror Organisms” – And Their Dangers

Synthetic biologists can alter the genes of microbes, plants, and animals to give them new abilities, with wide-ranging applications in medicine, agriculture, and manufacturing. But one advance in the field has raised special concern: that researchers might develop the ability to create lifeforms from molecules that are mirror images of the building blocks of life. Because the release of such organisms into the environment could be lethal to most life forms, 38 prominent scientists argued in a recent commentary in Science, this line of research should be paused.

Although most experts believe that the development of such organisms is at least 10 years away, Winthrop professor of genetics George Church, a leader in the development of DNA sequencing and synthetic biology, anticipates a much shorter time frame. “It’s less than a year,” he says. “It’s already gotten to the point where somebody who is sufficiently mischievous could start with what we’ve already published and run with it.”

In biology, mirror images abound. Although the right and left claws of a lobster or the wings of a butterfly may look alike, they cannot be superimposed one over the other—they are opposites, not replicas.