Dec 12 2018
The founders of the world’s first quantum biology doctoral training center explained that quantum biology—a young genre of science that has been growing popular by the day—is not as new as many believe, with a complex and rather dark history.
When Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist, delivered a prominent lecture on whether the then-new “atomic theory” could aid in solving the mystery of life, Professors Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden from the University of Surrey began to trace the origins of quantum biology dated as far back as the late 1920s. The study has been published by the Royal Society journal, Proceedings A.
In their study titled “The origins of quantum biology,” Al-Khalili and McFadden studied almost a century of pioneering and implausible queries regarding the link between the vague and nearly magical realm of quantum physics and the organized and rigid field of biology.
The aim of quantum biology is to infer whether quantum mechanics has a role to play in biological processes. A new study has already revealed that phenomena like bird navigation, respiration, photosynthesis, and even the way people think are all affected by quantum mechanics.
Earlier this year, Professors Al-Khalili and McFadden opened the doors to their new Quantum Biology Doctoral Training Centre. Supported by the Leverhulme Trust, the center trains a new generation of researchers who can work across the boundaries of quantum physics, chemistry, and biology to pioneer studies in quantum biology.
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. In this paper we tell the story of how it all began and why it is only now making a comeback.
Johnjoe McFadden, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Co-Director, Quantum Biology Doctoral Training Centre, University of Surrey.
With the University of Surrey now hosting the world’s first doctoral training centre in quantum biology and training PhD students in this interdisciplinary field, we felt it was a good time to tell the world something about its origins. We had wanted to lay out the history of quantum biology as far back as 2015, when Johnjoe and I wrote our popular science book, Life on the Edge, which has already been translated into 16 languages and was shortlisted for the Royal Society Winton Book Prize.
Jim Al-Khalili, Professor of Physics and Co-Director, Quantum Biology Doctoral Training Centre, University of Surrey.