“Such mirror organisms would constitute a radical departure from known life, and their creation warrants careful consideration.”A fundamental feature of all known life is a uniform chirality, or handedness. No imminent threat exists, the report stressed, and there are currently sizable technical hurdles to creating mirror bacteria. If these shapes were reflected — as they would be in mirror bacteria — recognition would be impaired and immune defenses could fail, potentially leaving organisms vulnerable to infection. Jones, an expert in plant immune systems, said that mirror bacteria would be extremely difficult to detect in plants. When they have to do all that but only with mirror molecules, that all need to be made and invented, then it makes it … 1000x harder,” he said via email.

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Persons: “, ”, Jonathan Jones, Craig Venter, ” Jones, Tom Ellis, Ellis, wasn’t Organizations: CNN, Sainsbury Laboratory, Craig, Craig Venter Institute, Genome, Imperial College’s, Biology Locations: Norwich, United Kingdom, bioengineering