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Comment by davideg | Hacker News Reader

> Defining mitochondria as “nonliving” isn’t just a classification mistake, nor a question of word choice. Rather, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and role of mitochondria. It inherently undermines our understanding of biological systems and deeply influences the tools we build to study them.

Once you accept mitochondria as alive, you might be motivated to explore its "potential" niche, as described by the author. The example of implanting cross-species mitochondria in human cells (e.g. from a gorilla) might lead to novel therapies.

It's about breaking outside the box of mitochondria having to live inside specific environments.

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I recognize that you might be motivated to explore removing and implanting mitochondria regardless of whether you consider it to be alive (as you might think about implanting an organ from another source).

I think the main point the author is making is to not fall prey to reductive thinking about mitochondria's potential and less about the question of "aliveness". We were all taught about mitochondria producing ATP, but it sounds like it serves many other functions and there's a lot more to explore about its potential in synthetic biology and therapeutics.

So the theory is that if we don't accept them as alive, then we can't experiment with implanting cross-species mitochondria in human cells? Why not? What stops us from doing this?

This is a fair point. I can see the excitement around recognizing that mitochondria is alive to motivate exploring its other functions. But I think you're right someone might be interested in that exploration regardless of whether it's considered alive.

Edit: to your point, there are plenty of scientists interested in studying viruses and much debate about whether or not they are alive. Ultimately it probably doesn't matter.

I do think when you consider mitochondria to be alive, it broadens the scope of your thinking because you start considering each characteristic of life in relation to mitochondria. You might not be motivated to do that without thinking in those terms.

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