alt Hacker NewsInteresting that this is led by the same Dr. Kate Adamala who ended the right-handed-proteins experiment a couple of years ago. Given how close she was I'm not surprised she's made this work.
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scarmig • today at 7:06 PM
Back then, it sounded like making right-handed life was decades away. But with this work, couldn't you just as easily make this kind of synthetic cell right-handed?
the left handed life thing is the only thing that makes me wonder about Adamala's judgement... there zero plausible mechanism for left handed life to succesfully compete.
in case you didn't know, your immune system WILL detect left handed pathogens, possibly more aggressively, and two of the body's mechanisms for fighting infection -- fever and ozonolysis -- are distinctly achiral
Arguably we should push for mirror life for industrial purposes FASTER because biocontrol is easier (they got nothing to eat) and lab escape is far less likely