The future of biology is quantum

Quantum effects in biology are important enough to affect the health of an organism, and even its life and death. Photosynthesis allows plants to generate energy, which is necessary for them to survive. Within animals, weak magnetic fields have been shown to affect development rates of embryos, rates of healing and DNA repair, and have even been implicated in human fertility for both men and women.

Quantum biology is an emerging scientific field which asks: “How does life depend on quantum phenomena?” Working at the intersection of quantum physics and biology, the field studies how quantum phenomena, which are tiny and ubiquitous, impact biological systems, including the development and functioning of the human body. These quantum phenomena include electron spin superpositions, noise-assisted tunneling, and more.

A phenomenon is “biological” if it relates to life, including the proteins, molecules, cells, and organs in living organisms and "quantum" if it depends on quantum mechanics. Of course, all of biology depends in some sense on quantum mechanics, but there are many phenomena where the quantum elements are crucial to understand. Those effects are "quantum biological."

Classical biology studies life under the assumption that matter behaves classically, that is, as described by the physical laws of Newton and electromagnetic laws of Maxwell. Quantum biology adds the equations developed by Schrödinger and Dirac, which yield different predictions about the behavior of atoms, molecules, weak magnetic fields, and more.

Examples include photosynthesis, where the best model postulates the quantum phenomenon of noise-assisted tunneling. Another well-known phenomenon is the navigation of birds during migration, which some scientists have proposed involves sensitivity to the Earth’s magnetic field through the radical pair mechanism[link to hypothesis page], which QBI is studying.

There is evidence that quantum effects are ubiquitous in nature. The clearest example is sensitivity to weak magnetic fields, such as the Earth’s. Such magnetosensitivity has been exhibited by many different cell types in a wide variety of organisms, from bacteria to tadpoles to human beings. Apart from exceptional cases, like manta rays and magnetotactic bacteria, the best-known explanation for observed sensitivity to weak magnetic fields involves a quantum mechanism.