Researchers have already created mirror-image amino acids and other biomolecules, but some see enormous risks in extending that work to create mirror-image organisms.N. Burgess/Science

It would be a nightmare lab leak: Synthetic bacteria escape the petri dish and unleash a global plague that life on Earth is incapable of defending itself against. That’s the concern raised by a group of eminent researchers in a Policy Forum published online today in Science. The commentary’s 38 authors, from a broad range of disciplines, argue that governments worldwide should prohibit research and funding aimed at creating so-called mirror-image bacteria whose chemical makeup differs in a fundamental way from that of naturally existing organisms...

Science: Leading scientists warn against developing ‘mirror-image’ bacteria