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‘Unprecedented risk’ to life on Earth: Scientists call for halt on ‘mirror life’ microbe research (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 year ago by HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to c/news@lemmy.world

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World-leading scientists have called for a halt on research to create “mirror life” microbes amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an “unprecedented risk” to life on Earth.

The international group of Nobel laureates and other experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could become established in the environment and slip past the immune defences of natural organisms, putting humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections.

Many molecules for life can exist in two distinct forms, each the mirror image of the other. The DNA of all living organisms is made from “right-handed” nucleotides, while proteins, the building blocks of cells, are made from “left-handed” amino acids. Why nature works this way is unclear: life could have chosen left-handed DNA and right-handed proteins instead.

The fresh concerns over the technology are revealed in a 299-page report and a commentary in the journal Science. While enthusiastic about research on mirror molecules, the report sees substantial risks in mirror microbes and calls for a global debate on the work.

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[–] protist@mander.xyz 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Despite there being no evidence for what you're claiming here, if you think about it for a second, you'd realize the spike protein isn't some sort of artificial substance being put into your body by a vaccine, but is atom for atom identical to the spike proteins found on different variants of covid.

If you get sick with covid, your body contains unfathomably more spike proteins than you would get from a hundred covid immunizations. And, if you've gotten an immunization, your immune system can keep the amount of virus in your system much lower.

It's ok to just not like the idea of the covid immunizations. Making stuff up to try to justify your belief, however...

[–] Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Maybe I worded my post badly, I never claimed that you shouldn't get vaccinated for covid. I just remember articles about researchers warning that ot may be a mistake to synthesize the entire covid spike protein for the vaccination, because there is a risk of the body developing immunity to the spike protein in such a way, that an endogenous protein is also detected, which then leads to an auto-immune disease.

This is one paper that I found that talks about what I heard back then.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35028901/

Moreover, the spike protein appears to share antigenic epitopes with human molecular chaperons resulting in autoimmunity and can activate toll-like receptors (TLRs), leading to release of inflammatory cytokines.

But apart from that, I only brought up covid to underline that the long-covid symptoms are the prime example anti-vaxxers point to when defending their decision not to vaccinate. And those long-covid symptoms are likely triggered by an auto-immune disease, which is likely triggered because of malformed covid-detection proteins that erroneously flag endogenous proteins as malicious as well.

So my point is, if the long-covid symptons are responsible for pushing anti-vax into the mainstream, then an auto-immune disease triggered by mirror-pathogens will break humanity.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

It’s ok to just not like the idea of the covid immunizations. Making stuff up to try to justify your belief, however…

Reading their comment carefully, I don't think that's what they're saying at all. They're not advocating against immunization, arguing that it's bad to inject synthetic substances, nor justifying their belief but rather guessing how the biology stuff works under the hood.