These physiological responses to magnetic fields are consistent with chemical reactions that depend on the spin of particular electrons within molecules. These processes include stem cell development and maturation, cell proliferation rates, genetic material repair and countless others. Research has demonstrated that many physiological processes are influenced by weak magnetic fields. The quantum experiments I have been building since graduate school, and now in my own lab, aim to apply tailored magnetic fields to change the spins of particular electrons. Spin defines how the electrons interact with a magnetic field, in the same way that charge defines how electrons interact with an electric field. In the same way that electrons have mass and charge, they also have a quantum property called spin. In my work, I build instruments to study and control the quantum properties of small things like electrons. Studying quantum mechanical effects in biology requires tools that can measure the short time scales, small length scales and subtle differences in quantum states that give rise to physiological changes-all integrated within a traditional wet lab environment. The tantalizing possibility that subtle quantum effects can tweak biological processes presents both an exciting frontier and a challenge to scientists. Research suggests that quantum effects influence biological functions, including regulating enzyme activity, sensing magnetic fields, cell metabolism and electron transport in biomolecules. Importantly, such nanoscopic, short-lived quantum effects are consistent with driving some macroscopic physiological processes that biologists have measured in living cells and organisms. Research on basic chemical reactions at room temperature unambiguously shows that processes occurring within biomolecules like proteins and genetic material are the result of quantum effects. In a complicated, noisy biological system, it is thus expected that most quantum effects will rapidly disappear, washed out in what the physicist Erwin Schrödinger called the ' warm, wet environment of the cell.' To most physicists, the fact that the living world operates at elevated temperatures and in complex environments implies that biology can be adequately and fully described by classical physics: no funky barrier crossing, no being in multiple locations simultaneously.Ĭhemists, however, have for a long time begged to differ. Things you might not expect happen in the quantum world, like electrons 'tunneling' through tiny energy barriers and appearing on the other side unscathed, or being in two different places at the same time in a phenomenon called superposition.Įlectrons can be in two places at the same time, but will end up in one location eventually. Instead, tiny objects behave according to a different set of laws known as quantum mechanics.įor humans, who can only perceive the macroscopic world, or what's visible to the naked eye, quantum mechanics can seem counterintuitive and somewhat magical. It has been known for more than a century that the rules of classical mechanics, like Newton's laws of motion, break down at atomic scales. Quantum effects are phenomena that occur between atoms and molecules that can't be explained by classical physics. And yet, the extent to which quantum effects influence living systems remains barely understood. Over the past few decades, scientists have made incredible progress in understanding and manipulating biological systems at increasingly small scales, from protein folding to genetic engineering.

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