James Smith

So I think autonomous scientific AI agents might be helpful here, but I don't think design is a key constraint.

And I think that is an area where AI might be most helpful.

So actually, relative to other bio threats, we might get less uplift on the development of myrobacteria, but it still could accelerate it.

Yeah, the most likely way that I think we would make mirror bacteria is through something called the bottom-up pathway, which basically means taking all of the mirror components and then putting them together and booting up life.

And so there are two relevant research fields here.

One is mirror biochemistry, which means making the mirror components

And then one is synthetic cells of natural chirality, because that gives you the method to boot the cell or to make life.

And you need advances in both of these to be able to make mirror life.

On the mirror biochemistry side, one of the key milestones that we haven't yet achieved is a mirror ribosome.

The ribosome is the most complicated molecule in the cell.

It's made up of 54 proteins in bacteria.

three big RNA molecules that all have to bind together in a really precise way in order to work.

And no one has yet made that.

The reason why making mirror components is so hard is because the way we do this normally in natural chirality is we use life to help us make things.

We don't have that.

So we have to make everything through chemistry.

And so it's much more difficult.

It's much more difficult to do it.

So there are big advances needed on the mirror biochemistry side of things.

On the synthetic cell side of things, no one has yet taken completely artificial dead components and put them together to make life.