Proposed design for a Mirror Life Biohazard symbol by Lewis MacKenzie (Autumn 2025), based upon the well-known biohazard logo.
‘Mirror life’ is a currently speculated biohazard threat, where we encounter life of opposite chirality to our own. For example, conventional earth life has right-handed DNA, whereas mirror life would have left handed DNA. Likewise all proteins would have their chirality swapped. The implication is that mirror life (e.g. mirror bacteria) could evade immune responses in plants, animals, and humans, with devastating consquences.
Image showing basic principals of detection/assay of mirror life using CPL generated by (A) achiral DNA binders and (B) chiral fluorescent/luminescent compounds.
There was a major mirror life policy report in ‘Science’ in late 2024 (along with a ~300 page technical report published by Harvard); additionally mirror life has attracted the attention of the US Library of Congress, the UK Government, and even the United Nations! Many of these discussions noted that there were no known techniques for assaying/detecting mirror life biohazards.
In our new perspective preprint, in collaboration with the group of Professor Robert Pal (Durham University), we have set out how both achiral fluorescent DNA binders and chiral fluorophores emitting circularly polarised luminescence (CPL) - e.g. BODIPYs and chiral Tb(III) and Eu(III) lanthanide complexes - could be used as the basis for the first assay against mirror life biohazards. This is the first potential assay format for mirror life, and would be compatible with spectroscopy, microscopy, and camera technologies.
Read about it on ChemRxiv! Please note this preprint may be udpated as the scientific context progresses prior to peer-reviewed publication. This work builds upon a decade of advancements in CPL instrumentation development and several decades of work by the wider scientific community developing CPL-active chiral compounds, alongside investigations of supramolecular chirality.