Scientists have developed a 'mirror life' detector that could save humanity from destruction.
Mirror life are synthetic organisms that could be constructed out of mirrored versions of molecules found in nature.
While they're yet to be created, experts have warned that these organisms could be catastrophic – with not even vaccines able to stop them from taking over plants, animals and humans.
Now, scientists from the University of Strathclyde and Durham University have proposed a new light–based method to detect mirror life.
'Mirror life presents a low–likelihood but high–severity global biosecurity threat that has attracted the attention of bioscientists, governments and international security organizations,' the team explained in their study, published in Royal Society Open Science.
'However, current analytical techniques are not fit to identify mirror life biohazards.
'We propose the first assay method for screening against mirror life.'
Scientists from the University of Strathclyde and Durham University have proposed a new light–based method to detect mirror life
As the name suggests, mirror life are a type of fully synthetic life in which all the biological molecules are replaced with 'mirrored' alternatives.
Because they're mirrored, the organisms would be 'invisible' to life on Earth, allowing them to slip past the immune defences of all known organisms.
What is mirror life?
Life on Earth has evolved to have right–handed DNA and left–handed amino acids. Scientists call this naturally chiral.
In mirror life, all of these molecules would be replaced by their mirrored alternative.
A mirror organism would be able to function normally except for the fact that naturally chiral chemical processes wouldn't interact with it.
This means a mirror bacteria would likely be invisible to the immune responses of any naturally chiral organism on Earth.
Their creation is likely at least a decade away – but advanced AI models could significantly shorten this timeline.
As a result, scientists are already thinking of ways to detect mirror life.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, lead author, Dr Lewis MacKenzie, explained: 'The concern is that mirror life could be made by irresponsible scientists or rogue states.
'Whilst synthetic biology is not yet advanced enough to create artificial cells, it is advancing rapidly. Leading synthetic biologists are calling for research into mirror life to be pre–emptively banned internationally.'
The team's proposed method uses special fluorescent dyes that glow when they bind to different parts of a cell.
Dr MacKenzie explained: 'These molecules would attach to specific parts of the cell, much like how a right hand fits a right hand, but not a left one.
'In turn, each type of molecule would produce a distinctive light signal (called circular polarisation) that could tell us whether the cell is ordinary Earth life or mirror life.'
Importantly, the light signals could be analysed using fairly simple, existing technology.
'The optical technology behind circular polarisation detection is similar to that used in 3D cinema glasses, and so is scalable in principle,' Dr MacKenzie added.
Life on Earth has evolved to have right–handed DNA and left–handed amino acids. Scientists call this naturally chiral. In mirror life, all of these molecules would be replaced by their mirrored alternative
The team now plans to demonstrate this approach in action – albeit with safe, non–mirror life.
'Our team have already developed the microscopes and cameras we would need to use to identify mirror life, and we have a back–catalogue of appropriate light–emitting molecules,' Dr MacKenzie said.
'We now need further funding to test how accurately the method works and make sure it does not produce false alarms. With the right funding, we believe we could demonstrate the approach within about a year of intensive research and development.'
The research will come as a relief to many scientists, who have raised concerns about the potential damage mirror life could cause.
In 2024, a group of 38 leading scientists from around the globe issued an urgent warning calling for a halt on research which could create these lethal lifeforms.
Dr Vaughn Cooper, a microbiologist from the University of Pittsburgh and co–author of the paper, said: 'This form of life has never existed or evolved, consequently, all biological interactions would be different or likely wouldn’t work.
'We don’t want to limit that promise of synthetic biology, but building a mirror bacterium is not worth the risk.'
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Professor Gregory Winter, a molecular biologist from the University of Cambridge, who won the Nobel Prize in 2018 for his work on the evolution of antibodies, revealed exactly how these bacteria could take over the human body.
'If they found their way into the blood, colonies of mirror bacteria could, for example, block up blood vessels, leading to failure of circulation and strokes,' he warned.
'Or they could colonise the sites of wounds, leading to wounds that don’t heal, helping infection by existing pathogenic bacteria.'
To make matters worse, Professor Winter warns that it would likely be 'impossible' to create a vaccine against these lethal infections.
How close are scientists to creating mirror life?
The fact that life on Earth evolved to have the biological handedness that it now has is largely believed to be an evolutionary fluke.
This means that there is no reason mirror life should not be able to develop and survive.
Since evolution moves by incremental changes, there is no way for mirror life to evolve from the current state of life on Earth.
The only way for mirror life to form would be for scientists to build the organism from scratch out of artificially created mirror molecules.
Doing this, even for a simple organism like a bacterium, is currently far beyond anything science has ever accomplished.
However, scientists are increasingly able to create complex mirror–image molecules out of basic chemical building blocks.
Recently, researchers have been able to create large functional mirror proteins and even components of mirror DNA.
At the same time, scientists are making rapid progress in the pursuit of synthetic cell construction.
As soon as scientists are able to construct a cell out of naturally handed non–living parts, there is nothing stopping them from using this technique on mirrored parts.
However, the technology required for this is not only well beyond anything ever accomplished but would also be absurdly expensive.
Currently, researchers estimate that there is about a decade before it is possible to create the first mirror organism unless something is done to halt this research.