🦠 Biosecurity Futures | Mirror Life

Mirror LifeA Risk We Could Still Prevent

Wednesday, 28 October 2026 · 18:15–19:45ETH Zürich, HG E 33.1

Mirror bacteria are organisms built entirely from mirror images of the molecules life actually uses. They do not exist yet. Building one is a decades-long research programme, and parts of it are already underway.

In 2024, a group of researchers published a lengthy technical report arguing that we should decide now not to build them. Several of the authors had spent their careers working towards synthetic life.

Their argument runs through immunology and ecology. Much of what keeps pathogens in check depends on molecular shape, and a mirror organism might slip past all of it: in humans, in animals, and in plants.

This session covers the science behind that argument, what would have to be true for it to hold, and the unusual position it puts the field in. Almost every other topic in biosecurity is about managing a capability that already exists. This one is a rare chance to act first, which raises its own question about whether early restraint is wisdom or overreach.

Biosecurity Futures is an introductory series on global catastrophic biological risks, hosted by the Zurich Biosecurity Hub at ETH Zürich.

Biosecurity Futures Series Schedule:

Worse Than Nature: Why the Deadliest Pandemics Won't Be Natural Ones — 30 Sep

AI Meets Biology: What Frontier Models Actually Change — 12 Oct (Monday)

Mirror Life: A Risk We Could Still Prevent — 28 Oct

The Air We Share: Clean Air, Far-UVC and Defences That Work Against Anything — 11 Nov

Layers of Defence: Screening DNA, Spotting Outbreaks, Stacking Imperfect Safeguards — 2 Dec

Open to students, researchers and staff from all departments and all universities, and to interested people from outside academia. Free.

Subscribe to the calendar to get all five sessions.

More at zurichbiosecurity.ch. Questions: [email protected]