Quantum Biology

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Quantum Biology: Origins, Scope, and Current Investigations

What Is Quantum Biology?

Quantum biology is the study of how quantum mechanical phenomena; coherence, entanglement, tunnelling, and superposition, operate in living biological systems and influence biological function. It bridges the gap between the quantum world of atoms and subatomic particles and the classical biological world we observe macroscopically. wikipedia​

Unlike classical chemistry and physics, which describe most biological processes through Newtonian mechanics and thermodynamics, quantum biology asks: What if the secrets of life—how DNA mutates, how enzymes catalyse reactions, how birds navigate, how we smell—require quantum explanation? scivpro​

Historical Origins: From Quantum Pioneers to Modern Research

The 1920s–1930s: The Quantum Pioneers

Quantum biology didn’t begin recently. It was born immediately after quantum mechanics itself was established in the 1920s. royalsocietypublishing​

Key figures:

• Niels Bohr (1927): Delivered influential lectures speculating whether quantum mechanics could illuminate the nature of life. His concept of “complementarity” inspired others to see quantum principles as fundamental to biology. royalsocietypublishing​

• Pascual Jordan (1932): Published arguably the first scientific paper on quantum biology, proposing his “amplifier theory”—that quantum indeterminacy (chance) could be “amplified” within living organisms to produce large-scale biological effects.pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih+1​

• Max Delbrück (1935): Co-authored the landmark Dreimännerwerk paper proposing that quantum radiation (X-rays) could directly mutate genetic material, suggesting quantum mechanics was central to heredity. royalsocietypublishing​

• Erwin Schrödinger (1944): Published the famous book What Is Life?, proposing that genes were “aperiodic crystals” storing information via quantum chemical bonds and that mutations might result from “quantum leaps”.wikipedia​

The philosophical backdrop: These pioneers were influenced by organicism; the view that life cannot be fully explained by classical mechanics alone and that quantum mechanics might provide the “missing laws” of biology. royalsocietypublishing​

The Post-War Decline (1940s–1990s)

After World War II, quantum biology largely fell out of favour. Geneticists and molecular biologists focused on classical chemistry (DNA sequencing, protein synthesis) and dismissed quantum effects as irrelevant to the “warm, wet” conditions inside cells. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih+1​

The prevailing view by the 1960s: Quantum mechanics had no special role in life. Biology could be explained by biochemistry alone. royalsocietypublishing​

The Modern Renaissance (1990s–Present)

Quantum biology re-emerged when experimental evidence arrived:

• Photosynthesis (1990s): Researchers discovered that light-harvesting complexes in plants achieve near-100% efficiency via quantum coherence; the ability to explore multiple pathways simultaneously before “choosing” the optimal route. Classical chemistry cannot explain this. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​
• Enzyme Catalysis (2000s): Quantum tunnelling was shown to be essential for enzyme activity; proteins couldn’t catalyse reactions fast enough without quantum tunnelling of protons and electrons. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​
• Bird Navigation (2000s): Migratory birds may navigate using quantum entanglement in specialized proteins in their eyes, detecting Earth’s magnetic field via quantum effects. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​
• Olfaction (2000s): The sense of smell may rely on quantum tunnelling to discriminate between molecular structures. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​
• DNA Mutation (ongoing): Per-Olov Löwdin’s 1963 work on proton tunnelling in DNA is now being revisited as a mechanism for genetic mutations. qeios​

Current Lines of Inquiry

Quantum Coherence in Biological Systems

The most active research area. Scientists are investigating how quantum coherence—the ability of quantum systems to maintain superposition (multiple states simultaneously)—persists in warm, wet, noisy biological environments. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​

Key findings:

• Photosynthetic pigments maintain coherence long enough to achieve efficiency impossible classically. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​

• Enzyme active sites may sustain quantum coherence while catalysing reactions. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​

• Brain microtubules (in Penrose‑Hameroff Orchestrated Objective Reduction theory) may support quantum coherence relevant to consciousness. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​

Current labs: University of Surrey (Centre for Quantum Biology), UC Berkeley, MIT, Chinese Academy of Sciences. phys​

Quantum Tunnelling in Biology

DNA base pair mutations, enzyme catalysis, and proton transfer in photosynthesis all may involve quantum tunnelling; particles passing through energy barriers they shouldn’t classically overcome. qeios+1​

Open questions:

• How prevalent is tunnelling in evolution? Did it drive the origin of life?
• Can we engineer tunnelling-based biological processes?

Quantum Entanglement in Neural Systems

Speculative but actively researched: Can quantum entanglement (where particles remain mysteriously correlated across distances) play a role in:

• Neural synchronization and brain function thequantuminsider​
• Consciousness itself popularmechanics​
• Collective behaviour in biological systems thegramjournal​

2024 research: Teams are exploring whether brain-quantum computer interfaces could expand consciousness by re-establishing quantum entanglement in neuronal networks. popularmechanics​

Quantum Epigenetics

A 2023 hypothesis proposes that quantum phenomena in DNA (electron delocalization, proton tunnelling) could influence which genes are expressed or silenced; a bridge between quantum physics and epigenetics. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​

Implication: Environmental “measurement” (stress, trauma, validation) might collapse quantum states in DNA, locking genes into “on” or “off” configurations; potentially explaining how experience becomes heritable.

Quantum Biology and Consciousness

The frontier of speculation. If consciousness arises from quantum processes in the brain, then:

• Does the collective unconscious operate via quantum entanglement? iai​
• Can quantum coherence explain Jung’s synchronicity (meaningful coincidence)? linkedin​
• Is consciousness itself a form of quantum information processing? mdpi​

2024 studies: Researchers are designing experiments to test whether conscious experience requires quantum superposition. Our own studies in relation to binary therapies add support to that idea.. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​

Quantum Information Biology

A theoretical framework proposing that biology fundamentally operates as quantum information processing across scales; from molecules to cells to organisms to psychology. arxiv​

This would reframe:

• DNA not just as chemistry but as quantum information storage
• Cells as quantum computers
• Consciousness as quantum computation
• The collective unconscious as a quantum information field

Why Now?

Three converging factors have revived quantum biology:

Technology: Quantum microscopy and computational power now make quantum simulations in biological systems feasible, where they were once purely theoretical. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​

Empirical evidence: Photosynthesis, enzymes, and bird navigation have proven quantum effects in biology are real, not speculative. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​

Philosophical openness: The gap between reductionist biology and the complexity of life has led scientists to ask whether quantum mechanics offers the missing piece. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​

The Current Status

Mainstream position: Quantum biology is “emerging but still speculative.” Quantum effects clearly operate in certain biological processes (photosynthesis, enzyme catalysis), but extrapolations to consciousness, collective unconscious, or whole-organism behaviour remain controversial. arxiv​

Cutting-edge position: Major institutions now fund quantum biology research, treating it as legitimate science. Research papers on quantum consciousness, quantum epigenetics, and quantum-brain interfaces are appearing in peer-reviewed journals. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​

Critical position: Some neuroscientists argue that quantum decoherence happens too quickly in the warm brain for quantum effects to matter to consciousness, while others defend quantum processes as essential to cognition. alleninstitute​

Connection to the DNA‑Self Hypothesis

Quantum biology provides the physical vocabulary to describes what we’ve proposed:

• Quantum coherence = the DNA‑Self’s entanglement with the collective unconscious field

• Quantum decoherence = core-self pruning (loss of coherence via environmental “measurement”/trauma)

• Quantum tunnelling = how pruned traits can “re-emerge” from shadow

• Quantum entanglement = the non-local connection between individual and collective DNA‑Self schemas

Current Research Paths

References and further reading