Quantum Biology - A new branch of biology ? Part 1
Most of us are familiar with various branches of biology - like Zoology, Physiology, Microbiology,Biotechnology, Molecular biology etc; but how many of us know about “Quantum Biology”?
I am also don’t know much about quantum biology, I am a biotech student,But now I am going to explore about it, you may join me too.
So, What is quantum biology? When or How quantum mechanics became part of biology?
Quantum biology is the study of biological phenomenons and problems using quantum physics and classical chemistry, in my understanding it also involves massive understanding of molecular biology and computational biology.
One of the core idea of quantum biology is ‘Everything about life can be explained in terms of the fundamental building blocks of matter and forces that connect them’.
Brief History:
The modern quantum mechanics born in between 1925-1927 when the mathematical models of quantum mechanics, like matrix mechanics developed by W. Heisenberg, Max Born, E. Schrodinger and others.
Quantum chemistry born in 1927,when L. Pauling and Johan C. Slater developed the Molecular Orbital theory or Valence theory.
(Fig: Niels Bohr and Pascual Jordan )
But if we think about quantum biology, most probably its starts in 1932 when Niels Bohr and Pascual Jordan published a paper (most probably the first paper) on quantum biology- “Quantum mechanics and the fundamental problems of biology and physiology”
Then in 1940's E. Schrodinger said that mutations in our genes occurs through quantum tunnelling (we will discuss about quantum tunnelling later).
Around 1945-50 molecular biology get an incredible break through when in 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helical structure of the DNA molecule based on the discoveries made by Rosalind Franklin and after that most of the life's mechanics were explained using molecular biology and classical chemistry.
The growth of quantum mechanics continues through various theories, discoveries and experiments, Like- neutrino experiment (1955) ,Clauss Jonsson’s Double-slit experiment (1961), Quantum Hall effect (1980), Experimental verification of quantum entanglement by J. clauser and Stuart Freesman (1972),Mach-Zehnder interferometer experiment (1994) etc.
(Fig: A brief timeline of various discoveries of quantum biology)
Recently, in the early twenty-first century “Quantum Biology” came into focus with strong theoretical arguments and experimental evidences like - Quantum coherence in photosynthesis, quantum tunnelling in enzyme action and olfaction , quantum entanglement in avian navigation etc .
With strong experimental evidences quantum biology explains biological phenomenons, which are difficult to be explained using classical chemistry. So, now its like a comeback for quantum biology.
Johnjoe McFadden, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Co-Director of the Centre for Quantum Biology at the University of Surrey, said: “Quantum biology is wrongly regarded as a very new scientific discipline, when it actually began before the Second World War. Back then, a few quantum physicists tried to understand what was special about life itself and whether quantum mechanics might shed any light on the matter. Now it is making a comeback.”(surrey.ac.uk/news/real-history-quantum-biology.2018)
We will talk about methods and applications of quantum biology in next few posts.
References and photograph sources:
1.The origin of quantum biology-Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden12 December 2018https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2018.0674
2.Indeterminate nature-the resurgence of quantum biology-Stephen Fleischfresser (https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/indeterminate-nature-the-resurgence-of-quantum-biology/)
Informative and nicely presented.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot sir.
Deletewaiting for more specific details on the subject. key experiments and conclusions and how they are in agreement (or not) with the advances of molecular biology. your attempt is good but, as of now, rather vague. btw, 'One of the core idea of quantum biology is ‘Everything about life can be explained in terms of the fundamental building blocks of matter and forces that connect them’ - isnt that what molecular biology and biochemistry are about too?
ReplyDeleteYes, this post can not clear the subject, in this post I just tried to explain that its not a new subject.
DeleteThe quantum world is itself kind of uncertain or vague, particles can be involved more than one tasks, they can be two places at once, they can behave like waves. Honestly I don't know how much I can explain (I am learning about those topics) but I will try to explain those things in the next posts one by one.
We can not understand quantum biology without molecular biology.
Ideas of quantum biology are just little different because in quantum biology we mostly talk about atoms, energy and waves etc. and in molecular biology we mostly talk about molecules, bonds and chemical reactions.