The Future of Biology is Quantum

Over the past 50 years, we have made incredible progress in our understanding of biological systems – from genetic engineering, to new therapeutic modalities, to protein folding. We now have the ability to study biological dynamics at increasingly small scales. And yet, we barely understand the extent to which quantum mechanical effects influence living systems – this is the purview of the emerging field called Quantum Biology. 

There is evidence that many macroscopic and relevant physiological processes are the result of quantum laws being deployed by biology. For example, correlative data exist suggesting that quantum effects can influence biological function within phenomena as varied as magnetic field detection for animal navigation, metabolic regulation in cells, and electron transport in biomolecules. By understanding – and by controlling – quantum effects in biological systems, we may be able to develop new therapeutics, new biological sensors, and new solar cells inspired by photosynthesis. Furthermore, some speculate that Quantum Biology might be the key to understanding human cognition.

However, today there is no concerted effort to build the high-tech tools required to drive this field forward. We thus need a grand, medium-term strategy to support this field. Here we propose a new research organization focused on building the foundation of what may be biology’s most important cross-disciplinary field of study in the coming decades. 

In general, quantum mechanical effects manifest when length/mass scales are small, or temperatures approach absolute zero. Under those circumstances, counterintuitive quantum phenomena (such as entanglement and superposition/coherence) can be observed and manipulated.  Once the number of degrees of freedom increases, most quantum effects are expected to rapidly disappear, being washed out in what Schrödinger called the “warm, wet environment of the cell”. The biological world operates at elevated temperatures and in relatively complex environments, which has always implied that, beyond the trivial quantum nature of atoms and bonds, its physics can be adequately described by classical mechanics. 

However, there are several areas where quantum processes may play non-trivial roles in the function of living systems.  When quantum mechanical states are protected from their environment, they may persist for long enough that they can influence biochemical pathways.  For example, “quantum information” stored in electronic or nuclear spins may persist for suitably long to be available for sensing magnetic or electric fields. In such a process, biology can leverage its extraordinary signal-enhancing powers, amplifying small quantum effects that lead to large downstream chemical responses. Organisms might even optimize quantum processes to fit their ecological niche, thereby improving their fitness.

The tantalizing possibility that subtle quantum effects may influence biological processes presents both an exciting frontier and an extreme challenge to the experimental community. Any study of quantum mechanical effects in biology must be accompanied by state-of-the-art quantum-inspired tools, dedicated to measuring short time scales, small length scales and subtle heterogeneity that give rise to physiological outcomes – all integrated with traditional wet-lab experimental approaches. Currently, such tools do not exist, and are not fundable given the purview of mainstream funding agencies.

There is little funding today to support high-tech Quantum Biology R&D. This emerging field does not fit within the mandate of governmental funding agencies, and while there is some funding from private organizations, focused and stable capital is needed to build the talent and tools to unleash Quantum Biology’s potential. Furthermore, greater levels of coordinated engineering and system building is required than can be addressed by academia today.

We propose an independently funded Quantum Biology Research Organization (QBRO), led by Dr. Clarice Aiello. This organization will act as a fundamental node in this ecosystem, unencumbered by grant-writing and the “publish or perish” cycle, with the goal of enabling quantum biology to reach its full potential in the medium- to long-term. 

The current Quantum Biology bottleneck is the lack of quantum-inspired instrumentation that can obtain “quantum information” from biology, and systematically control quantum phenomena in biology. QBRO’s primary goal is to develop the high-tech tools required to accelerate progress in Quantum Biology.

QBRO will:

1. Build, openly share, and partner the fundamental high-tech instrumentation needed to transition this field from correlative data towards control of quantum processes in biology;

2. Recruit and support the best scientists to bring Quantum Biology to the mainstream, and to make it mainstream-fundable in the medium-term;

3. Enable both the private sector and academia to advance Quantum Biology-enabled products and theranostics.

In the long run, the fine-tuning of endogenous “quantum knobs” existing in nature will enable the development of drugs and therapeutic devices that could heal the human body via quantum signaling. A long-term goal is thus to harness endogenous quantum degrees of freedom in biology to commandeer and drive physiology. 

Imagine driving cell activities to treat injuries and disease simply by using tailored magnetic fields (MFs). Many disease markers, such as the production of reactive oxygen species during adult stem cell-mediated regeneration, epigenetic changes to induce pluripotency, cell fate decisions in embryonic stem cells, and cell differentiation of adult stem cells were demonstrated to be controlled by weak MFs (with a strength on the order of that produced by your cell phone), very likely via the electron quantum property of ‘spin’. Although exciting, these data are correlative, and the functional relevance of such quantum effects in biology remains unclear. Research has not been able to track spin states to manipulate physiological outcomes in vivo and in real time, without which the potential game-changing clinical benefits of quantum signaling cannot be realized in the long-term. The goal of the proposed QBRO is to, within an accelerated timeline, design and build novel instrumentation to directly measure and control both spin states and their biological consequences at the same time.

Instrumentation we will develop include:

1. Microscopes coupled to coils and radio-frequency microchips, where specimens (from proteins to both invertebrate and vertebrate cells) will be systematically perturbed by MFs. 

2. An electrophysiology setup coupled to coils and radio-frequency microchips where the hypothesis that spin-dependent chemical reactions happening within the cellular membrane might influence the functioning of ion channels can be tested. Optogenetics relies on laser excitation to control the opening and closing of ion channels in genetically modified cells. Here, with tailored, weak MF excitation and no genetic modification, we posit it might be possible to deterministically affect ion channel functioning – with myriad applications for neurological control.

3. A scanning tunneling microscope coupled to coils and radio-frequency microchips to help decipher why, at room temperature, charge transport through chiral biomolecules favors one spin (“chiral-induced spin selectivity”, observed first in DNA and α-helices and presently harnessed in spintronics). 

Can quantum spin physics be established – or refuted! – to account for physiologically relevant biological phenomena, and be manipulated to technological and therapeutic advantage? This will be the broad, exciting question addressed by the QBRO.

How do you train a new generation of interdisciplinary scientists? What steps need to be taken now, so that in decades to come, there might be Quantum Biology departments within universities? 

Dr. Clarice Aiello is actively engaged in research and community-building in Quantum Biology. She was awarded an NSF Research Coordination Network grant for community-building in Quantum Biology, has applied for a new GRC conference series, and conducted novel sessions in major conferences such as BPS and ASCB. She is a strong supporter of, and actor for, an increase in diversity in STEM, and is the director of the first US-based Quantum Biology Center at UCLA, with funds (exclusively) to develop community-building activities and to ideate academic curricula for this emerging area.

Here are some identified needs related to the training of quantum biologists:

1. The writing of a textbook that both describes the different “flavors” of potential quantum processes in biology via peer-reviewed published research, and provides curated foundational knowledge in biology, quantum physics, chemistry and experiment engineering;

2. The development of a curricular structure for: graduate courses that can form a Quantum Biology core or become electives for programs in quantum science or quantitative biology (within one decade); for an undergraduate minor in Quantum Biology (within one decade); for an undergraduate major and a full graduate program (within two decades);

3. The founding of a peer-reviewed journal of Quantum Biology;

4. The short-term creation of educational programs, including summer schools inspired by consolidated interdisciplinary models like the discussion-led programs at the Kavli Institute, and the hands-on research courses at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole;

5. Most importantly, the research funding stability required (and presently lacking) to attract and retain top talent at early career stages, from graduate students to early-career faculty and scientists.

The current bottleneck in Quantum Biology is the lack of high-tech instrumentation that can directly prepare, control and measure endogenous quantum degrees of freedom in biology as if they were bona fide quantum objects. Our QBRO proposal addresses this bottleneck in that: 1) it is grounded on instrumentation that applies “quantum coherent control” (i.e., engineered MFs) onto biomatter; and 2) predictions and quantum simulations drive the hybrid quantum biological experiments (in contrast to biophysics studies in which phenomena are modeled after observation).

This frontier field is not yet recognized by governmental funding agencies, and not yet relevant to disease foundations. Even with paradigm-altering potential benefits, attempts to fund similar cutting edge projects have been consistently labeled too “biological” for engineering mechanisms, too “engineering” for biological ones, and completely out of scope by the NIH. 

With medium-term sustained support (5–7 years) of our deeply interwoven physics/biology/theory operation, we expect not only to realize and share with the Quantum Biology community enabling instrumentation, but also to showcase initial results that can catapult Quantum Biology into a mainstream-fundable area. 

We are still exploring different operational and funding models for the QBRO. We invite potential partners from the private sector, academia, and government to join with us to build the most impactful organization possible.

This field may prove to be as important for the future of humanity as quantum physics or neuroscience. We must start planning, building the tools, and fostering the talent to explore it, so that in the decades to come Quantum Biology can reach its full potential.

Thank you to Justin Caram, Betony Adams, and Wendy Beane for their contributions and support in drafting this document.