• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Tuesday, September 9, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS

Design Principles of Quantum Biology

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
May 4, 2013
in NEWS
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

The researchers have engineered small molecules that support long-lived quantum coherences. Coherences are the macroscopically observable behavior of quantum superpositions. Superpositions are a fundamental quantum mechanical concept, exemplified by the classic Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment, in which a single quantum particle such as an electron occupies more than one state simultaneously.

Quantum effects are generally negligible in large, hot, disordered systems. Nevertheless, the recent ultrafast spectroscopy experiments in UChicago chemistry Prof. Greg Engel’s laboratory have shown that quantum superpositions may play a role in the near perfect quantum efficiency of photosynthetic light harvesting, even at physiological temperatures.
Photosynthetic antennae — the proteins that organize chlorophylls and other light-absorbing molecules in plants and bacteria — support superpositions that survive for anomalously long times. Many researchers have proposed that organisms have evolved a means of protecting these superpositions. The result: improved efficiency in transferring energy from absorbed sunlight to the parts of the cell that convert solar energy to chemical energy. The newly reported results demonstrate that his particular manifestation of quantum mechanics can be engineered into human-made compounds.
The researchers modified fluorescein — the same molecule once used to dye the Chicago River green for St. Patrick’s Day — and then linked different pairs of these dyes together using a rigid bridging structure. The resulting molecules were able to recreate the important properties of chlorophyll molecules in photosynthetic systems that cause coherences to persist for tens of femtoseconds at room temperature.
“That may not sound like a very long time — a femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second,” said study co-author Dugan Hayes, a UChicago graduate student in chemistry. “But the movement of excitations through these systems also occurs on this ultrafast timescale, meaning that these quantum superpositions can play an important role in energy transfer.”
To detect evidence of long-lived superpositions, the researchers created a movie of energy flow in the molecules using highly engineered laboratories and state-of-the-art femtosecond laser systems. Three precisely controlled laser pulses are directed into the sample, causing it to emit an optical signal that is captured and directed into a camera.
By scanning the time delays between the arriving laser pulses, the researchers create a movie of energy flow in the system, encoded as a series two-dimensional spectra. Each two-dimensional spectrum is a single frame of the movie, and contains information about where energy resides in the system and what pathways it has followed to get there.
These movies show relaxation from high energy states toward lower energy states as time proceeds, as well as oscillating signals in very specific regions of the signal, or quantum beats. “Quantum beats are the signature of quantum coherence, arising from the interference between the different energetic states in the superposition, similar to the beating heard when two instruments that are slightly out of tune with each other try to play the same note,” Hayes explained.
Computer simulations have shown that quantum coherences work in photosynthetic antennae to prevent excitations from getting trapped on their way to the reaction center, where the conversion to chemical energy begins. In one interpretation, as the excitation moves through the antenna, it remains in a superposition of all possible paths at once, making it inevitable that it proceeds down the proper path. “Until these coherences were observed in synthetic systems, it remained dubious that such a complex phenomenon could be recreated outside of nature,” Hayes said.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Chicago

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

How Evolution Sheds Light on Autism Rates in Humans

How Evolution Sheds Light on Autism Rates in Humans

September 9, 2025

Advancing Precision Psychiatry in Eating Disorders

September 9, 2025

Diverse Strategies Enable Fly Embryos to Resolve the Challenge of ‘Tissue Tectonic Collision’

September 9, 2025

Optimizing Energy-Level Alignment in Perovskite Solar Cells: Insights from an Energy Flow Perspective

September 9, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • blank

    Breakthrough in Computer Hardware Advances Solves Complex Optimization Challenges

    151 shares
    Share 60 Tweet 38
  • New Drug Formulation Transforms Intravenous Treatments into Rapid Injections

    116 shares
    Share 46 Tweet 29
  • First Confirmed Human Mpox Clade Ib Case China

    56 shares
    Share 22 Tweet 14
  • A Laser-Free Alternative to LASIK: Exploring New Vision Correction Methods

    48 shares
    Share 19 Tweet 12

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

How Evolution Sheds Light on Autism Rates in Humans

Advancing Precision Psychiatry in Eating Disorders

Diverse Strategies Enable Fly Embryos to Resolve the Challenge of ‘Tissue Tectonic Collision’

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.