A group of 38 scientists published a detailed technical report in December 2024. The article did not contain any claim of a new discovery or blueprint for a futuristic advancement. Rather, it contained a warning. The entirety of those lengthy pages called out on one thing and one thing alone:
“If any of you continue working on this, you could pose a catastrophic risk to the world, and there will be no going back.”
Pause for a second. Stranger Things is a pretty popular series. Demogorgons, superpowers, children named after numbers. Personal opinion insert: I am not the biggest fan, though, but most of us are. Like, who doesn’t want to run through alternate realities, peek into an upside-down world, and save humanity? This isn’t a show review. Trust me, I am getting there.
Upside-down. That is the thing that the report was about. Now, that does not mean the scientific community was trying to create monsters or alternate dimensions. They were just curious about something named ‘mirror bacteria.’ But then again, doesn’t every scientific breakthrough and every risk come with curiosity?
Mirror bacteria? The bacteria that can act like a mirror? No. The bacteria that are the opposite image of the original ones. Sounds impossible. But it is not. We are all familiar with the fact that our genetic material, DNA and RNA, codes everything about us, including our proteins. Normally, these molecules twist and fold in a specific direction. This is called ‘homochirality.’ Now this is ideal. This is how we all exist.
But no, a scientist in the 1800s suggested that we can reverse this combination. And there you will have it: mirror molecules. His name was Louis Pasteur. (Fun Fact: The same scientist who told us that boiling kills the bacteria in milk. Completely irrelevant by the way.)
So, at that time, this was just a theory. But then we evolved. And evolution brought us technology and synthetic biology. Which means we learned to engineer and manipulate living systems. This led to scientists being confident in their skills and exploring more daring ideas. And finally, they come up with another theory. That was the actual danger disguised as a solution: mirror bacteria.
Their intentions were not just curiosity or… an absolute love for Stranger Things. They were trying to address a serious global issue. And that is antibiotic resistance. A phenomenon where whenever you try to kill or limit bacteria with an antibiotic. The bacteria evolve over time. And they develop resistance to the drugs designed to kill them.
But with mirror bacteria or mirror molecules. If used, the antibiotics wouldn’t be able to get detected by the bacterial system because of their opposite chirality. So those poor pathogens would not even know that these molecules were killing them. Until they are no more. Alas… So, where does the problem lie?
The problem was that they were basically invisible to the bacterial system. Yes. But it is also relevant to the immune system of humans. This is because our immune system has a slight exception. It has the manual to fight against every foreign molecule since birth. So, it can handle any outsider if it breaches our system. But only the ones created by nature. Synthetic organisms? They might just slip by undetected.
And when scientists analysed this risk, they realised mirror organisms could be limitless. And in the living world, everything must have a limit. That means controlling them would be extremely difficult. If the idea of them were turned into reality, they would surpass our public health systems. They would keep on replicating. They would spread into humans. Spread in the environment.
“The consequences could be globally disastrous.” Not my words. They were actually said by a Nobel-prize-winning chemist, Jack W. Szostak, in an interview with The New York Times. That means our technology is not able to handle such beings yet. Maybe in the future. But as Arya Stark once said, “Not Today.”
So why hasn’t the research been halted completely? Why scientists are still exploring synthetic biology. Why are the United Nations and other governments setting “red lines” instead of stopping entirely? Because potential benefits are enormous. Controlled production of mirror molecules would revolutionise therapeutics. AMR is already responsible for almost 5 to 6 million deaths worldwide, according to the WHO. We might be able to fix that.
But… the Planetary Holocaust!
I know the prospect of the creation of a mirror life is stressing you out. It is stressing me out, too. But worldwide governments and health agencies are working hard to impose limits on the research. They are setting clear distinctions between the creation of mirror molecules and mirror organisms. Apparently, mirror molecules are not as dangerous as mirror organisms.
And most importantly, according to the UN and the UK government, we won’t be able to produce mirror life for at least a decade. So don’t worry, you are not fighting Vecna anytime soon. Or in 10 years to say the least. Till then, we can entertain this idea as mere science fiction. Because life is short, it is up to you to make it sweet or not, or something along the lines of what Sarah Louise Delany said.