{"id":3741,"date":"2016-03-31T16:36:49","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T14:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.toulouse-white-biotechnology.com\/insights\/actualites\/actualite\/the-biologist-and-the-strange-facts-of-quantum-mechanics\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T13:52:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T12:52:49","slug":"the-biologist-and-the-strange-facts-of-quantum-mechanics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toulouse-white-biotechnology.com\/en\/insights\/blog\/news\/the-biologist-and-the-strange-facts-of-quantum-mechanics\/","title":{"rendered":"The biologist and the strange facts of quantum mechanics…"},"content":{"rendered":"The exotic laws of quantum mechanics impact living systems that we are familiar with: can we hope to apply them to the field of\u00a0biotechnology?<\/strong>\n\n
\"science2\"<\/figure>\n\n
\"science\"<\/figure>\n\n

\u00a0\r\n\r\nPictures from:<\/p>\n\nhttp:\/\/villavoice.fr\/avis-de-recherche-le-chat-de-schrodinger-present-ou-absent\/<\/a>\n\n

,<\/p>\n\nhttp:\/\/www.neotrouve.com\/?p=1296<\/a>\n\n

Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s cat, a thought experiment imagined in 1935 by the physicist<\/p>\n\nErwin Schr\u00f6dinger<\/a>\n\n

to illustrate the superposition of states in quantum mechanics, a concept now serving as the basis for the quantum computer technology of which Google is one of the first users.\r\n\r\nHave you ever wondered what links could exist between Google, a green plant, this beautiful migratory bird, the teleportation of Mr. Spock (Star Trek) and the higly secure transmission of military data? Have you ever dreamed of living simultaneously at different times and in different places? Surely only in your wildest\u00a0dreams, and yet\u2026.\r\n\r\nThe<\/p>\n\nmacroscopic<\/strong>\n\n

world, the one we know everyday, and the<\/p>\n\nquantum<\/strong>\n\n

world, that of atoms\u00a0and subatomic particles, appear to us totally disjoined. In fact these two worlds form a continuum even if on the face of it they seem to be governed\u00a0by<\/p>\n\northogonal\u00a0laws<\/strong>\n\n

. In particular, the quantum world\u00a0underlies the principle of \u00ab\u00a0<\/p>\n\nnon-locality<\/strong>\n\n

\u00a0\u00bb. In 1935, Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen put their finger on the most conceptually revolutionnary aspect of quantum mechanics. It was not until 1964 that the concept was clarified by John Bell, concluding that the<\/p>\n\nquantum world is non-local<\/strong>\n\n

, which allows, among other things, two \u00ab\u00a0<\/p>\n\nentangled<\/strong>\n\n

\u00a0\u00bb quantum<\/p>\n\nobjects<\/strong>\n\n

to \u00ab\u00a0feel\u00a0\u00bb instantaneoulsy their reciprocal\u00a0states, whatever their distances in time or in space. This theory was experimentally validated by John Clauser in 1972 and Alain Aspect in 1982 and then, more recently,<\/p>\n\nwidely applied<\/strong>\n\n

to\u00a0encrypted\u00a0communications and<\/p>\n\nquantum computers<\/strong>\n\n

.\r\n\r\nBiologists have long considered that the quantum world\u2019s exoticism<\/p>\n\nhas no observable consequence<\/strong>\n\n

at the scale of<\/p>\n\nliving systems<\/strong>\n\n

. Indeed, even if quantum phenomena\u00a0unquestionably preside over the structure and chemical properties of the bricks of life, their consequences seemed to be confined to<\/p>\n\nsub-nanometric<\/strong>\n\n

scales. Physics even provided good arguments in support of this discourse by pointing out that phenomena\u00a0such as the<\/p>\n\nentanglement<\/strong>\n\n

\u00a0of two objects were only observable on very short time scales and in experimental conditions particularly<\/p>\n\nprotected from interactions<\/strong>\n\n

with the outside world. A few projects of \u00ab\u00a0quirky\u00a0\u00bb biologists, sometimes based on\u00a0philosophical concepts, have attempted to search for the quantum entanglement signature in \u00ab\u00a0twin\u00a0\u00bb\u00a0biological systems, but<\/p>\n\nwithout success<\/strong>\n\n

.\r\n\r\nThe first real<\/p>\n\ndemonstration<\/strong>\n\n

appeared around 2005-2010 with the fundamental\u00a0works on Plants\u2019<\/p>\n\nphotosynthetic\u00a0systems<\/strong>\n\n

where a quantum entanglement mechanism plays an<\/p>\n\nimportant role<\/strong>\n\n

for the<\/p>\n\nyield<\/strong>\n\n

\u00a0of photosynthesis by synchronizing the electronic excitation state of the various photo-receptor antennas. This first demonstration marked an important step by providing a frame for<\/p>\n\ntargeting the conditions<\/strong>\n\n

necessary for the observation of quantum phenomena impacting a biological phenomenon.\r\n\r\nThe second solid example concerns the biological<\/p>\n\ndetection<\/strong>\n\n

of weak<\/p>\n\nmagnetic fields<\/strong>\n\n

. Birds are throught to have cryptochromes in their retina, which may be sensitive both to photons received by the eye and to the Earth\u2019s magnetic field. A team of Oxford University clarifying\u00a0the works carried out at the University of Crete explains the phenomenon by the generation of a pair of entangled electrons. In the absence of magnetic field, the pair would recombine, but in the presence of a magnetic field, the spin of one of the electrons would be affected and the information transmitted at a distance to its partner by quantum entanglement, would generate a visual signal that the bird could<\/p>\n\nperceive to orient itself<\/strong>\n\n

.\r\n\r\nOther examples remain putative, such as the functioning of transmembrane electron carriers\u00a0of electricity generating\u00a0bacteria. But what about their<\/p>\n\nuse<\/strong>\n\n

in<\/p>\n\nbiotechnology<\/strong>\n\n

? There is nothing yet, but there is no shortage of ideas, whether they be used as quantum computer components, bio-sensors, or energy converters. Nevertheless, the biotechnologist will have to<\/p>\n\nrespect the constraints<\/strong>\n\n

imposed by physics to search which biological properties can be usefully impacted by these exotic phenomena on the nanometric scale. Beyond entanglement, many other quantum phenomena\u00a0could potentially be used, such as the \u00ab\u00a0<\/p>\n\ncasimir<\/strong>\n\n

\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n\neffect<\/strong>\n\n

for extracting energy from the vacuum\u00a0or for building<\/p>\n\nnano-motors<\/strong>\n\n

. The only limit remains our imagination and our will to change the paradigm\u2026.<\/p>\n\n

To learn more<\/h2>\n\n