Is it possible to synthesize chiral version of an organism (incompatible with our pathogens)?

Question

In theory, it should be possible to synthesize chiral (mirror image) version of some organism: with all molecules replaced with their enantiomers, e.g. L-sugars in place of our D-sugars.Direct application of such chiral life could be production of enantiomers of proteins in e.g. chiral E. Coli, what might be useful for example as new drugs.However, the most interesting is that such chiral life would be incompatible with our pathogens, for example allowing to design really sterile ecosystems for harsh environments like Mars. Finally, such chiral human would be immune to most of our diseases.Nice article: http://wikibin.org/articles/chiral-life-concept.htmlThe question is if it is technologically possible to synthesize e.g. a chiral version of E. Coli?

Answer 1

perhaps on paper, but the simple act of replacing all of the chemicals(even in a simple cell) with chiral versions (and i mean EVERY chemical) would be a task of undaunting difficulty. First, how are you going to make dna strands in the chiral form - there isn't a polymerase to accomplish such a task (unless i missed the paper). also (just a second of many, many hurdles in the task), how do you generate such a beast. the lipids would have to be chiral (i know for a fact that there is a chiral cholesteral molecule thats been made at washu about 20 years ago, but thats one chemical). i dont even want to try and envision the creation of a chiral ER of Golgi complex - it makes one's head spin.

this answer wasn't meant to be insulting, far from it. i simply wanted to point out a very short part of a very long list of things to be generated (theb there's the whole sparking it to life issue once all the parts are assembled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xos2MnVxe-c

a matter-energy transfer beam (replicator) might help, but thats 300 years off (in the star trek universe

drsjp