A Quantum Bio Perspective
by Clarice Aiello
Pay attention to quantum biology research to unlock a transformative way to understand and control cell physiology.
Teaser: Quantum biology is not a basic science curiosity; it changes our comprehension of biology profoundly and is already providing concrete therapeutic possibilities.
Quantum biology is an emerging interdisciplinary field that combines concepts from quantum physics and biology to assess the extent to which brief quantum effects at the microscopic scale influence biological functions in living matter—macroscopically. Since starting an informed discussion without a shared vocabulary is difficult, quantum physics describes the laws of nature that replace Newton’s classical physics at very small length scales, such as only a small number of atoms or molecules.
Chances are, you’ve heard about the poster children of the quantum biology field—birds that navigate using Earth’s very weak magnetic field, and the photosynthetic apparatus that outperforms any human-made solar cell. Correlative evidence suggests that quantum effects drive both phenomena. For the quantum expert: the former is possibly driven by an electron spin superposition-dependent chemical reaction that occurs in the birds’ eyes, and the latter by involving phonons, or vibrations, that counterintuitively help, not hinder, the transport of the photon energy that a plant absorbs.
Though important to raise awareness to the field, confining the discussion to these two examples is impoverishing because they fail to capture how widespread and organism-agnostic quantum effects in biology truly are.
Quantum phenomena native to biomolecules appear to alter countless physiological responses also in human cells. Learning how to control such quantum-driven effects deterministically opens a transformative avenue in therapeutics.
Quantum superpositions in molecules are consistent with driving widespread macroscopic biological processes selectively.
Most types of quantum phenomena found in biology involve tailored electromagnetic radiation that impinges on matter to change quantum states within it. In quantum physics, this is uninspiringly called light-matter interactions; in biology, it could fit within a subfield of bioelectromagnetics. Such light-matter interactions are more complex than a molecular chromophore simply absorbing a photon, which in turn gets excited and de-excites by emitting fluorescence, as it is explained below.
Electromagnetic radiation of particular intensities and frequencies place quantum objects (e.g., an electron) into a fragile state known as a superposition. This has been verified since the beginnings of quantum physics, when scientists developed the experimental capability to control simple quantum systems, such as a cloud of identical atoms in a vacuum chamber. A superposition means that a quantum object has multiple, macroscopically conflicting properties simultaneously. As an analogy, a ball can be either yellow or blue, but not both, like a flip switch. In contrast, if an electron had colors, it could, in principle, be put into a superposition of being both yellow and blue at the same time, like a dimmer switch. Various electromagnetic radiation frequencies and intensities create different superpositions, or positions on the dimmer switch— closer to yellow or closer to blue in color.
There’s nothing magical about it; it is just a new set of laws that apply at length scales that do not correspond to humans’ macroscopic physical reality. Superpositions are known to be a resource that improves technology, underlying applications such as quantum-enhanced sensors and the building blocks of quantum computers.
For the room-temperature, test-tube chemical reactions that are thought to play a role in quantum biology, it is uncontroversial that carefully chosen electromagnetic radiation can put some electrons in molecules in a superposition state. Such short-lived superpositions help determine the downstream macroscopic final products of these chemical reactions (i.e., at much longer timescales than the duration of the quantum effect itself). In other words, the more the tailored radiation biases the superposition dimmer switch to one side, the more an end product is produced, and vice versa.
Though only correlatively, not causally, verified experimentally, if deployed inside living cells and not only test tubes, such chemical superpositions might elucidate the increasingly evident, exquisite sensitivity of organisms to external electromagnetic stimuli. In particular, they would explain how small amounts of electromagnetic radiation have been observed over decades to affect cellular function macroscopically. Organisms seem to behave as bona fide living quantum sensors.
Consider birds that navigate using Earth’s magnetic field, which is orders of magnitude smaller than the magnetic field produced by a cell phone. Birds respond macroscopically to magnetic fields in a way consistent with their behavior being driven by a chemical reaction that sustains superpositions. It is hypothesized that, as birds fly around the Earth, the various magnetic fields to which they are exposed produce different molecular superpositions, which, in turn, produce different end products of a (yet unknown) chemical reaction. Thus, birds (and other organisms) might react to, or sense, magnetic fields to an extent that they react to physiological concentrations of final products of the chemical reactions that those magnetic fields alter.
Quantum biology research may help identify deterministically how to change human physiology using weak electromagnetic radiation, with myriad therapeutic implications
Widespread physiological responses to weak magnetic fields, akin to the birds’, have been reported extensively for nearly half a century and across the tree of life, including in vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, and bacteria. Unfortunately, existing data are overwhelmingly non-systematic regarding magnetic field strengths, frequencies, and exposure durations, making direct comparisons within this wealth of information effectively futile. These data range from behavioral to molecular length scales, and are nonetheless largely consistent with what is expected should molecular superpositions be present in cells and indeed altered by external fields.
Among other phenomena [review], weak magnetic fields (with strengths similar to a cell phone’s) have been demonstrated to control the up- and down-regulation of cell proliferation, wound healing, DNA repair, cellular respiration and metabolism, regulation of production of cellular oxidants [review], stem-cell regeneration, cell migration and cytoskeleton configuration (in both actin and microtubules), epigenetics, tau-protein conformation, embryogenesis, and ion channel functioning [review].
Macroscopic physiological control is therefore within reach as scientists learn how to tweak these phenomena deterministically using an externally applied, weak magnetic field of appropriate frequency, strength, and direction. Therapeutics have thus far relied on chemicals, but using quantum biology knowledge, a whole new set of electromagnetic therapeutic possibilities may become available. Notably, no genetic modification is required, as the quantum properties are endogenous to the cellular biomolecules, but genetic alterations could even be crafted to exacerbate a desired physiological effect. Similarly, weak magnetic fields could also modulate the effects of established therapeutic interventions.
To make matters more interesting, and for reasons that are well-understood from the quantum physics of experiments with molecules in solution, the magnitude of the physiological effect does not simply monotonically increase or decrease with magnetic field strength. The only magnetic field strengths that can alter such chemical reactions are relatively small and thus are produced easily, ranging to only a few times the strength of a cell phone’s. Culturing cells in an environment where the tiny magnetic field of the Earth is carefully shielded messes with biology, with implications as broad as space exploration: can we farm in space under Mars’ ultraweak magnetic field? Another relevant point is that a big magnet such as that found in a magnetic resonance imager will not alter cellular physiology, at least not through the quantum mechanism described here—whereas a simple cell phone might.
Many researchers and established companies (one of them worth close to USD 10B) have already been applying empirically discovered weak magnetic fields that, for example, reduce tumors and increase yields of lab-grown meat. Such employed fields all lie within strengths and frequencies that are consistent with the underlying quantum chemical mechanism described above. However, at present, a lack of understanding of the microscale light-biomatter interactions prevents deterministic prediction of which magnetic field intensities and frequencies affect which chemical reactions inside cells.
Imagine a quantum-driven, modified version of the neuroscience technique of optogenetics. Optogenetics relies on laser excitation to control the opening and closing of ion channels in genetically modified cells. Here, with tailored, weak magnetic field excitation and no genetic modification, it might be possible to affect ion channel functioning deterministically, non-invasively, and with a penetration depth longer than lasers, leading to a distinct set of implications for neurological control. For the biology expert: it seems that Ca2+ signaling is an important part of this electromagnetic puzzle. Take Memantine—an Alzheimer's disease drug that received FDA approval. It works by inhibiting prolonged cellular influx of Ca2+ through NMDAR ion channels. Side effects are observed maybe as a result of the drug binding to multiple ion channels, including to the serotonin and dopamine receptors. It can be speculated whether the correct combination of magnetic field strength and frequency, chosen based on the particular cellular environment of the NMDAR channels, could provide an increased therapeutic specificity when compared to Memantine treatment by itself. Such Ca2+ regulation with weak magnetic fields has already been observed. For the quantum expert: for reasons that were only fleetingly alluded to above, establishing “the particular cellular environment of the NMDAR channels” effectively means establishing “the local spin Hamiltonian of the electrons whose superpositions alter the desired cellular influx of Ca2+ through a particular chemical reaction”.
Modern cell phones and wearable and miniaturization technologies are already sufficient to produce the tailored, weak magnetic fields that could function as personalized, quantum-driven therapeutics. What’s missing is a codebook for how to map quantum causes to physiological outcomes deterministically. Novel, quantum-like instrumentation that acts on biological matter might precisely yield such predictive codebook information.
Research in quantum biology has the potential to advance development of endogenous (i.e., no need for genetically engineering cells), non-chemical, non-invasive, cheap, portable, and remotely actuated electromagnetic medical treatments accessible to anyone with, for example, a cell phone.
It’s time that the biosciences community takes notice.
Quantum literacy as an important step toward fostering quantum biology and understanding the world in which we live
Quantum biology is a fascinating and worthwhile scientific venture—the bridge to establishing how quantum effects at the cellular level control how life works.
However, broadening the reach of quantum biology is especially challenging. It means asking quantum physicists to engage with existing correlative data that strongly suggests that quantum physics is at play outside of the laboratory, courtesy of nature, an engineer with billions of years of expertise, and bringing quantum literacy to bioscientists.
A quarter of a century ago, the people who learned how to computer code were mostly engineering or physics undergraduates. Today, coding is relevant in any field, including the humanities (think about linguists programming recognition of communication patterns). For the educationally privileged, coding is nowadays introduced as early as middle school. I believe and certainly hope that the same will become true during the next quarter century for quantum physics. We already live in a quantum world—GPS, lasers, magnetic imaging, and even laptops are all powered by the microscopic laws of quantum physics.
Widespread quantum literacy will thus allow everyone to not only understand the daily technologies to which we are exposed, but to grasp how the microscopic world influences our macroscopic reality, for example the properties of materials, the outcomes of myriad chemical reactions, and a more complete description of biology.
Quantum literacy will enable the inclusion of as many interdisciplinary scientists as possible (e.g., chemists, biologists, engineers, clinicians, physicists, and material scientists, among others) in the discussion of how quantum physics informs and controls biology. In the near future, for the real-world applications of quantum biology, especially therapeutics, the sky—or rather, the subatomic realm—is the limit.