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Quantum Biology May Help Solve Some of Life’s Greatest Mysteries

From the remarkable speed of enzyme-catalyzed reactions to the workings of the human brain,
numerous biological puzzles are now being explored for evidence of quantum e ects.
Catherine O ord
Jun 1, 2019
I
n one of the University of She eld’s physics labs, a few hundred
photosynthetic bacteria were nestled between two mirrors positioned ABOVE: MODIFIED FROM
© ISTOCK.COM, AGSANDEW
less than a micrometer apart. Physicist David Coles and his colleagues
were zapping the microbe- lled cavity with white light, which bounced
around the cells in a way the team could tune by adjusting the distance between the mirrors. According to results
published in 2017, this intricate setup caused photons of light to physically interact with the photosynthetic
machinery in a handful of those cells, in a way the team could modify by tweaking the experimental setup.1
That the researchers could control a cell’s interaction with light like this was an achievement in itself. But a more
surprising interpretation of the ndings came the following year. When Coles and several collaborators reanalyze
the data, they found evidence that the nature of the interaction between the bacteria and the photons of light was
much weirder than the original analysis had suggested. “It seemed an inescapable conclusion to us that indirectly
what [we were] really witnessing was quantum entanglement,” says University of Oxford physicist Vlatko Vedral, a
coauthor on both papers.
Quantum entanglement refers to the states of two or more particles being interdependent, regardless of the dista
separating them. It’s one of many counterintuitive features of the subatomic landscape, in which particles such as
electrons and photons behave as both particles and waves simultaneously, occupy multiple positions and states at
once, and traverse apparently impermeable barriers. Processes at this scale are captured in the complex
mathematical language of quantum mechanics, and frequently produce e ects that appear to defy common sens
(See Glossary: Quantum Terminology infographic.) It was using this language that Vedral and colleagues had
detected signatures of entanglement between photons and bacteria in data from the She eld experiment.
It’s almost ridiculous, counterintuitive, that quantum e ects

should persist inside cells.
—Jim Al-Khalili, University of Surrey
Researchers have demonstrated entanglement many times in inanimate objects—in 2017, scientists reported they
managed to maintain this interdependence between pairs of photons separated by 1,200 kilometers. But if Vedral
and colleagues’ proposal that the phenomenon was taking place in bacteria is correct, the study could mark the r
time entanglement has been observed inside a living organism, and add to a growing body of evidence that
quantum e ects are not as unusual in biology as once believed.2
https://www.the-scientist.com/features/quantum-biology-may-help-solve-some-of-lifes-greatest-mysteries-65873?utm_content=93610407&utm_medi… 1/12
That quantum phenomena might be observable in the messy world of living systems is historically a fringe idea.
While quantum theories accurately describe the behavior of the individual particles making up all matter, scienti
have long presumed that the mass action of billions of particles jostling around at ambient temperature drowns o
any weird quantum e ects and is better explained by the more familiar rules of classical mechanics formulated b
Isaac Newton and others. Indeed, researchers studying quantum phenomena o en isolate particles at temperatur
approaching absolute zero—at which almost all particle motion grinds to a halt—just to quash the background no
“The warmer the environment is, the more busy and noisy it is, the quicker these quantum e ects disappear,” say
University of Surrey theoretical physicist Jim Al-Khalili, who coauthored a 2014 book called Life on the Edge that
brought so-called quantum biology to a lay audience. “So it’s almost ridiculous, counterintuitive, that they should
persist inside cells. And yet, if they do—and there’s a lot of evidence suggesting that in certain phenomena they d
then life must be doing something special.”
Al-Khalili and Vedral are part of an expanding group of scientists now arguing that e ects of the quantum world
may be central to explaining some of biology’s greatest puzzles—from the e ciency of enzyme catalysis to avian
navigation to human consciousness—and could even be subject to natural selection.
“The whole eld is trying to prove a point,” says Chiara Marletto, a University of Oxford physicist who collaborate
with Coles and Vedral on the bacteria-entanglement paper. “That is to say, not only does quantum theory apply t
these [biological systems], but it’s possible to test whether these [systems] are harnessing quantum physics to
perform their functions.”
Enzyme Catalysis: A Tunnel Through the Barrier

Traditional theories of enzyme catalysis hold that the proteins speed up reactions by lowering the activation
energy. But some researchers argue that a quantum trick known as tunneling also plays a role, and that the
structure of enzymes’ active sites might have evolved to take advantage of this phenomenon.
See full infographic: WEB | PDF

© LUCY READING-IKKANDA
A
Many chemical reactions are prevented from happening spontaneously by an energy barrier, known
as the activation energy.
B
Enzymes lower this barrier by stabilizing an intermediate, or “transition,” state that allows the
reaction (such as the movement of a hydrogen atom within a molecule) to take place.
C
The intermediate state can be bypassed if particles within the molecule are transferred via quantum
tunneling, where a particle essentially instantaneously traverses the barrier with a certain probability.
Quantum e ects in biology’s fundamental reactions

By the mid-1980s, University of California, Berkeley, biochemist Judith Klinman was convinced that the tradition
explanation of enzyme catalysis was incomplete. Contemporary theories held that enzymes interact with substra
on the basis of shape and classical mechanics, physically bringing together substrates at their active sites and
stabilizing transition states of molecular structure to accelerate reaction rates up to a trillionfold or more. But
Klinman had been getting odd results from in vitro experiments with an enzyme extracted from yeast.
In catalyzing the oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde, the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme shi s a hydrog
atom from one position to another. Unexpectedly, when Klinman and her colleagues replaced speci c hydrogen
atoms in the substrate with the heavier isotopes deuterium and tritium, the reaction drastically slowed down.
Although classical explanations of enzyme catalysis allowed for modest isotope e ects, they couldn’t account for t
large drop in rate Klinman observed. “What we saw were deviations from the existing theories,” she says.
Her team kept investigating, and, in 1989, published an explanation building on ideas already circulating among
enzyme researchers: that catalysis involves a quantum trick called tunneling.3 Quantum tunneling is like kicking
football through a hill, explains Al-Khalili—where the football is an electron or another particle, and the hill is an
energy barrier preventing a reaction from happening. “In the classical world you have to kick it hard enough to g
up the hill and down the other side,” he says. “In the quantum world, you don’t have to. It can go halfway up,
disappear, and reappear on the other side.”
Klinman’s team posited in this and later papers that, during the catalysis of benzyl alcohol oxidation and many ot
reactions, hydrogen transfer takes place with assistance from tunneling. This helps explain why deuterium and
tritium o en hold reactions up—heavier particles are worse at tunneling, and can make tunneling harder for othe
particles in the same molecule. The e ects observed by Klinman’s group have since been replicated by other labs
multiple enzymes and provide some of the strongest evidence for quantum e ects in biological systems, Al-Khali
says. (See infographic.)
But while it’s now generally accepted that tunneling occurs in biological catalysis, researchers are divided on how
much it matters—and whether it might be subject to natural selection. Chemist Richard Finke at Colorado State
University, for example, showed that some reactions exhibit isotope e ects to a similar degree whether or not an
enzyme is present, suggesting that it’s unlikely that enzymes are particularly adapted to enhance tunneling e ects
the reactions they catalyze.4 It’s also unclear how much tunneling speeds up reactions; some researchers argue th
the e ect generally contributes no more than a small boost to processes governed primarily by classical mechanic
PHOTOSYNTHESIS: ALL PATHS TRAVELED

During the light-harvesting reaction of photosynthesis in plants and some microbes, a photon excites an electro
in a chlorophyll molecule to create a structure called an exciton—an entity containing both the excited electron
and the positively charged hole it leaves behind. This exciton is then transferred via other chlorophyll molecule
until it reaches a protein complex called the reaction center.
Traditional Model
According to the traditional, or “incoherent,” model of this process, the exciton’s route to the reaction center is
more or less random. Because energy can be lost during the transfer process, such a path can end up being
wasteful.
Quantum Model
By contrast, if the energy transfer process is “quantum coherent” such that the exciton travels like a wave, it can
explore all possible paths simultaneously and only take the most e cient route.
Klinman says she thinks that tunneling in enzymes is far more fundamental. “Our view is that enzymes create ver
precise and compact active site structures” that promote tunneling, she says. During catalysis, for example, enzym
change conformation in a way that can bring hydrogen donor and acceptor sites close enough—within about 0.27
nanometers of each other—to facilitate tunneling, she notes.
Her group has pursued the idea by mutating enzymes’ active sites and observing how reaction rates and isotope
e ects change in vitro. Earlier this year, for example, the team created a version of soybean lipoxygenase that
slightly mispositions its substrates in a way that should make hydrogen tunneling unfavorable. Compared with th
wild type, the mutant enzyme’s catalytic power is four orders of magnitude lower, and it’s much more sensitive to
the replacement of hydrogen with deuterium.5
Researchers are still quantifying tunneling’s role in catalysis, and Klinman emphasizes the importance of using
multiple methods, including mutagenesis and computational modeling, to understand exactly how proteins spee
up reactions. Experimental evolution of enzymes, in which researchers repeatedly select proteins to increase thei
catalytic power, could also o er insight into tunneling’s contribution—although at least one recent attempt to do
was inconclusive. Last year, a team that evolved an enzyme catalyzing a reaction involving hydrogen transfer
reported that quantum tunneling was “not observed to signi cantly change” across the evolutionary process.6
The debate mirrors an ongoing conversation about the functional importance of quantum phenomena in anothe
Earth’s critical biological processes, photosynthesis. While Vedral and colleagues are investigating whether bacter
photosynthetic machinery becomes entangled with photons, other groups have been studying how another
quantum e ect could help maximize the e ciency of photosynthetic energy transfer.
During the light-harvesting reaction in plants and some microbes, photons excite electrons contained in chloroph
molecules to create entities called excitons. These excitons are then transferred from chlorophyll molecule to
chlorophyll molecule until they reach the reaction center—a cluster of proteins where their energy can be captur
and stored.
Excitons can lose energy as they’re transferred, meaning that the more roundabout their routes are among the
chlorophyll molecules, the less energy reaches the reaction center. Physicists suggested decades ago that this
wastefulness could be averted if the transfer process was quantum coherent. That is, if excitons could travel like
waves rather than particles, they could simultaneously try out all paths to the reaction center and take only the m
e cient route. (See illustration.)
In 2007, a team led by chemists Graham Fleming of the University of California, Berkeley, and Robert Blankensh
of Washington University in St. Louis claimed to have observed quantum coherence in complexes of chlorophyll
molecules extracted from green sulfur bacteria, photosynthetic microbes o en found in the deep ocean where lig
availability is low. The researchers used a technique that analyzes the energy absorbed and emitted by a sample, a
detected a signal called quantum beating—oscillations they interpreted as evidence of coherence—in complexes
cooled to 77 Kelvin. Over the next few years, they and other groups replicated the results at ambient temperature
and extended the ndings to chlorophyll complexes from marine algae9 and spinach.10
Whether these results re ect a meaningful quantum contribution to energy transfer in photosynthesis is up for
debate. In 2017, for example, researchers in Germany took another look at green sulfur bacteria and reported tha
the coherence e ect lasted less than 60 femtoseconds (0.00006 nanoseconds)—too brief to aid energy transfer to
the reaction center.11 But last year, another group argued that there are multiple types of coherence in chlorophy
complexes, and some do appear to last long enough to be useful in photosynthesis.12 Other scientists point to hin
that some bacteria can switch coherence e ects on or o by producing di erent forms of a key light-harvesting
protein.13 Such ndings have reignited speculation that, like enzymes, photosynthetic machinery might have
evolved to exploit quantum phenomena.
Coherence e ects in photosynthesis are now a well-accepted phenomenon, says Blankenship. As is the case for
tunneling in enzymes, “the most relevant discussion at this point is whether they really have an e ect on [the]
e ciency of the system or some other aspect of it that gives a real biological bene t. I think the jury’s still out.”
MAGNETORECEPTION: SPINNING SENSORS
According to the radical-pair model of avian magnetoreception, cryptochrome, a protein found in the retinas o
birds and other animals, may be the magnetosensor, detecting the direction of magnetic ?elds via changes to the
spin states of some of its electrons.

Reactions within the cryptochrome The radical pair oscillates between If those products go on to
protein generate a pair of molecules these two states, and the probability in uence neural signaling
that each have a lone electron. These of nding it in one state or the from the bird’s retina, then
electrons, which can be entangled other is in uenced by the direction this mechanism could
with each other, occupy one of two of magnetic elds. If the singlet and provide the basis for
states: a “singlet” state, meaning the triplet states of the radical pair are magnetoreception.
spinning direction of one is related to associated with di erent
the spinning direction of the other biochemical reactions, then the
such that the spins are antiparallel; or yields of products from those
a “triplet” state, in which the two reactions can provide information
electrons tend to have spins that are about the direction of a magnetic
close to parallel. eld.
Quantum explanations for puzzles in animal biology
Every winter, European robins in the northern part of the continent migrate hundreds of kilometers south to the
Mediterranean. It’s a navigational feat made possible by magnetoreception—speci cally, the birds’ ability to detec
the direction of the Earth’s magnetic eld. But early attempts to explain this sixth sense, including the proposal th
birds rely on internal magnetite crystals, failed to garner experimental support.
By the late 1990s, the problem had caught the eye of Thorsten Ritz, then a graduate student working on quantum
e ects in photosynthesis under the supervision of the late biophysicist Klaus Schulten at the University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign. He became particularly interested in cryptochrome, a light-sensitive protein found in the
retinas of birds for which there’s now “good evidence” of a role in magnetoreception, says Ritz, who has since mo
to the University of California, Irvine. So in 2000, focusing on this protein and building on Schulten’s earlier
theoretical work, Ritz, Schulten, and another Illinois colleague published what would come to be known as the
radical-pair model to explain how magnetoreception might operate.14
The researchers proposed that reactions in the cryptochrome protein generate a pair of radicals—molecules that
each have a lone electron. The behavior of those electrons, which can be quantumly entangled with each other, is
sensitive to the alignment of weak magnetic elds such as the Earth’s. Changes in the alignment of this pair relativ
to the magnetic eld could theoretically trigger downstream chemical reactions, allowing the information to be
somehow transmitted to the brain. (See illustration.)
The hypothesis generated a handful of predictions that Ritz went on to test in collaboration with the biologists wh
rst described magnetoreception in robins, Roswitha and Wolfgang Wiltschko. In a study published in 2004, for
example, the team exposed robins to magnetic elds oscillating at frequencies and angles that the model predicte
would disrupt the radical pair’s sensitivity to the Earth’s magnetic eld—and e ectively knocked out the birds’
ability to navigate.15
The idea has taken o since then, with growing theoretical support. And two 2018 studies of the molecular
properties and expression patterns of one version of cryptochrome, Cry4, point to the protein as a likely candida
magnetoreceptor in zebra nches16 and European robins.17
More work is needed to determine whether or not avian magnetoreception really works this way, and to reveal if
entanglement between the electrons of the radical pair is important. Scientists also don’t fully understand how
cryptochrome could communicate magnetic eld information to the brain, says Ritz. Meanwhile, his group is
focused on mutagenesis experiments, which could help unravel cryptochrome’s magnetosensitivity. Last fall,
University of Oxford chemist Peter Hore and biologist Henrik Mouritsen of the University of Oldenburg in
Germany won European funding for QuantumBirds, a project with similar aims.
Now you’re not considered completely mad if you say you’re

studying quantum mechanics in biology. It’s just considered a
little bit wacky.
— Johnjoe McFadden, University of Surrey
Magnetoreception isn’t the only puzzle in animal sensory biology that’s generated interest among quantum
physicists; another scienti cally mysterious sense that researchers hope to help crack is olfaction. The traditional
theory—that odorant molecules t into protein receptors on olfactory neurons to trigger smells—faces the challe
that some molecules with almost identical shapes have completely di erent odors, while others with di erent
stereochemistry smell alike.
In the mid-1990s, University College London (UCL) biophysicist Luca Turin, now a respected perfume critic,
proposed that olfactory receptors might be sensitive not just to shape, but to the frequencies of vibrating bonds in
odorant molecules.18 He argued that when an odorant binds to a receptor, if its bonds are vibrating at a certain
frequency they can facilitate the quantum tunneling of electrons within that receptor. This transfer of electrons,
according to his model, triggers a signaling cascade in the olfactory neuron that ultimately sends an impulse to th
brain.
Experimental evidence for the idea is still elusive, says Jenny Brookes, a UCL physicist who has formulated the
problem mathematically to show that it’s theoretically feasible. “But that’s partly why it’s quite exciting.” In recent
years, researchers have looked for isotope e ects similar to the ones found in enzyme function. If tunneling plays
substantial role, odorant molecules containing heavier hydrogen isotopes should smell di erent from normal
versions due to the lower vibration frequencies of their bonds.
The ndings are mixed. In 2013, Turin’s group reported that humans can distinguish between odorants containin
di erent isotopes.19 Two years later, other researchers failed to reproduce the results and called the theory
“implausible.”20 But the idea didn’t go out of fashion. In 2016, another team reported that honey bees can
di erentiate odors with di erent isotopes,21 while a recent theoretical study presents a suite of new predictions to
help test the model’s validity.22
Theoretical work is also driving interest in quantum biological explanations with far less experimental support. F
example, some researchers have speculated that the coherence e ects posited to play a role in photosynthesis cou
also contribute to such widespread biological phenomena as vision and cellular respiration. Others have suggeste
that proton tunneling could promote spontaneous mutations in DNA, although theoretical work by Al-Khalili and
colleagues suggest this isn’t terribly likely, at least for the adenine-thymine base pairs they modeled.23
Perhaps the most extreme extension of quantum physics to the animal kingdom is the idea that weird quantum
e ects might play a role in the human brain. University of California, Santa Barbara, physicist Matthew Fisher ha
argued that neurons possess molecular machinery capable of behaving like a quantum computer, which instead o
using bits of 0s or 1s operates with qubits, units of information that can have states of both 0 and 1 simultaneously
The brain’s qubits, Fisher proposed, are encoded in the states of phosphate ions inside Posner molecules, clusters
phosphate and calcium found in bone and possibly within certain cells’ mitochondria. Recent theoretical work by
his team argues that the states of phosphate ions in di erent Posner molecules could be entangled with one anoth
for hours or even days, and may therefore be able to perform rapid and complex computations.25 Fisher recently
received funding to set up an international collaboration, called QuBrain, to look for these e ects experimentally
Many neuroscientists have expressed skepticism that the project will turn up positive results.
GLOSSARY: QUANTUM TERMINOLOGY
The world at the scale of spinning atoms and subatomic particles is governed by the probabilistic rules of
quantum mechanics, which o en produce e ects that seem counterintuitive to organisms living in a world
usually described perfectly well by more-standard physics. These e ects have been harnessed for multiple
technological applications, and the possible role of quantum phenomena in several biological systems is now
being explored.
Entanglement: Two particles are said to be quantumly entangled if their states are

interdependent, regardless of the distance separating them. In the classic example of
entanglement two entangled electrons, when measured, will have opposite spins.
Important for: Quantum computing, quantum cryptography

Studied in: Photosynthesis, magnetoreception, human consciousness
Qubits:These units of information are the quantum equivalent of standard binary digits
or bits. While a bit can have a state of 0 or 1, qubits can have multiple states
simultaneously, and may be entangled with other qubits to perform parallel
computations. Qubits can be encoded in the spin states of electrons and other subatomic
particles.
Important for: Quantum computing

Studied in: Human consciousness
Tunneling: Particles at the quantum scale have wave-like properties, and their exact
location at any moment is described by a probabilistic wave function. As a result,
particles such as electrons can, with certain probabilities, traverse—or tunnel through—
apparently impermeable energy barriers.
Important for: Thermonuclear fusion, scanning tunneling microscopy

Studied in: Enzyme catalysis, photosynthesis, olfaction, DNA mutation
Coherence: Because quantum objects can behave like waves, they can exhibit a property
of waves called coherence when they are in a particular rhythm with one another.
Quantum coherence underlies several e ects observed by quantum physicists, including
entanglement as well as interference patterns manifested as so-called quantum beating.
Loss of coherence has traditionally been thought to happen very quickly in the
molecular bustle of ambient- temperature environments.
Important for: Lasers, superconductors, quantum computing

Studied in: Photosynthesis, magnetoreception, vision, respiration
Putting quantum biology to work
https://www.the-scientist.com/features/quantum-biology-may-help-solve-some-of-lifes-greatest-mysteries-65873?utm_content=93610407&utm_med… 10/12
Most ideas in quantum biology are still driven more by theory than by experimental support, but a number of
researchers are now trying to close the gap. Vedral’s team plans to collect more data on bacterial entanglement lat
this year, and physicist Simon Gröblacher of Del University of Technology in the Netherlands has proposed
carrying out entanglement experiments with tardigrades. In 2017, Al-Khalili and his Life on the Edge coauthor,
University of Surrey biologist Johnjoe McFadden, helped establish a doctoral training center for quantum biology
encourage interdisciplinary crosstalk and advance research e orts. Among the wider community of scientists and
research funders, “now you’re not considered completely mad if you say you’re studying quantum mechanics in
biology,” McFadden says. “It’s just considered a little bit wacky.”
Researchers who spoke to The Scientist also emphasize that, whether or not the theorized mechanisms garner
experimental support, the speculation in quantum biology is itself valuable. “As we miniaturize our technology, w
have a wealth of information in the biological world from which to draw inspiration,” says theoretical physicist an
quantum computing researcher Adriana Marais, head of innovation at tech company SAP Africa. “This is a fantas
opportunity to investigate what life is, but also to learn lessons on how to engineer processes at this microscale in
optimal way.”
Real-world applications encompass technologies from more-e cient solar cells to new classes of biosensors. Last
year, one group proposed a design for a “biomimetic nose,” based partly on the quantum theory of olfaction, to
detect tiny concentrations of odorants.26 And Hore and others have highlighted the radical-pair mechanism that
may underlie magnetoreception for use in devices to sense weak magnetic elds.
“We can use the information we gain to design systems on these principles,” says Ritz, “even if it turns out that tha
not how birds do it.”
References
1. D. Coles et al., “A nanophotonic structure containing living photosynthetic bacteria,” Small,

doi:10.1002/smll.201701777, 2017.
2. C. Marletto et al., “Entanglement between living bacteria and quantized light witnessed by Rabi splitting,” J
Phys Commun, 2:101001, 2018.
3. Y. Cha et al., “Hydrogen tunneling in enzyme reactions,” Science, 243:1325–30, 1989.
4. K.M. Doll et al., “The rst experimental test of the hypothesis that enzymes have evolved to enhance hydrog
tunneling,” J Am Chem Soc, 125:10877–84, 2003.
5. S. Hu et al., “Biophysical characterization of a disabled double mutant of soybean lipoxygenase: The ‘undoi
of precise substrate positioning relative to metal cofactor and an identi ed dynamical network,” J Am Chem
141:1555–67, 2019.
6. N.-S. Hong et al., “The evolution of multiple active site con gurations in a designed enzyme,” Nat Commun,
9:3900, 2018.
7. G.S. Engel et al., “Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic
systems,” Nature, 446:782–86, 2007.
8. G. Panitchayangkoon et al., “Long-lived quantum coherence in photosynthetic complexes at physiological
temperature,” PNAS, 107:12766–70, 2010.
9. E. Collini et al., “Coherently wired light-harvesting in photosynthetic marine algae at ambient temperature,
Nature, 463:644–47, 2010.
10. T.R. Calhoun et al., “Quantum coherence enabled determination of the energy landscape in light-harvestin
complex II,” J Phys Chem B, 113:16291–95, 2009.
11. H.-G. Duan et al., “Nature does not rely on long-lived electronic quantum coherence for photosynthetic
energy transfer,” PNAS, 114:8493–98, 2017.
12. E. Thyrhaug et al., “Identi cation and characterization of diverse coherences in the Fenna–Matthews–Olson
complex,” Nat Chem, 10:780–86, 2018.
13. S.J. Harrop et al., “Single-residue insertion switches the quaternary structure and exciton states of cryptophy
light-harvesting proteins,” PNAS, 111:E2666–75, 2014.
14. T. Ritz et al., “A model for photoreceptor-based magnetoreception in birds,” Biophys J, 78:707–18, 2000.
15. T. Ritz et al., “Resonance e ects indicate a radical-pair mechanism for avian magnetic compass,” Nature,
429:177–80, 2004.
16. A. Pinzon-Rodriguez et al., “Expression patterns of cryptochrome genes in avian retina suggest involvemen
Cry4 in light-dependent magnetoreception,” J Roy Soc Int, doi:10.1098/rsif.2018.0058, 2018.
17. A. Günther et al., “Double-cone localization and seasonal expression pattern suggest a role in
magnetoreception for European robin cryptochrome 4,” Curr Biol, 28: 211–23.E4, 2018.
18. L. Turin, “A spectroscopic mechanism for primary olfactory reception,” Chem Senses, 21:773–91, 1996.
19. S. Gane et al., “Molecular vibration-sensing component in human olfaction,” PLOS ONE, 8:e55780, 2013.
20. E. Block et al., “Implausibility of the vibrational theory of olfaction,” PNAS, 112:E2766–74, 2015.
21. M. Paoli et al., “Di erential odour coding of isotopomers in the honeybee brain,” Sci Rep, 6:21893, 2016.
22. A. Tirandaz et al., “Validity examination of the dissipative quantum model of olfaction,” Sci Rep, 7:4432, 2017
23. A.D. Godbeer et al., “Modelling proton tunnelling in the adenine–thymine base pair,” Phys Chem Chem Phys,
17:13034–44, 2015.
24. M.P.A. Fisher, “Quantum cognition: The possibility of processing with nuclear spins in the brain,” Ann Phys,
362:593–602, 2015.
25. M.W. Swi et al., “Posner molecules: from atomic structure to nuclear spins,” Phys Chem Chem Phys, 20:12373
80, 2018.
26. A. Patil et al., “A quantum biomimetic electronic nose sensor,” Sci Rep, 8:128, 2018.
Clari cation (June 25): This story has been updated to clarify that, in quantum tunneling, there is a very brief lag time before
particle traversing a barrier appears on the other side. The Scientist regrets any confusion.
Keywords:
atom, catalysis, cell & molecular biology, enzymes, magnetoreception, photosynthesis, physics, quantum biology, subatomic particles
https://www.the-scientist.com/features/quantum-biology-may-help-solve-some-of-lifes-greatest-mysteries-65873?utm_content=93610407&utm_med… 12/12

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Home / Archive / June 2019 / Features

Quantum Biology May Help Solve Some of Life’s Greatest Mysteries

It’s almost ridiculous, counterintuitive, that quantum e ects

Enzyme Catalysis: A Tunnel Through the Barrier

See full infographic: WEB | PDF

Quantum e ects in biology’s fundamental reactions

PHOTOSYNTHESIS: ALL PATHS TRAVELED

MAGNETORECEPTION: SPINNING SENSORS

See full infographic: WEB | PDF

Quantum explanations for puzzles in animal biology

Now you’re not considered completely mad if you say you’re

GLOSSARY: QUANTUM TERMINOLOGY

Entanglement: Two particles are said to be quantumly entangled if their states are

Important for: Quantum computing, quantum cryptography

Important for: Quantum computing

Important for: Thermonuclear fusion, scanning tunneling microscopy

Important for: Lasers, superconductors, quantum computing

See full infographic: WEB | PDF

Putting quantum biology to work

1. D. Coles et al., “A nanophotonic structure containing living photosynthetic bacteria,” Small,

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