How Quantum Biology governs Life

The Robin’s flight, the smell of a rose and the oxygen around us : How QUANTUM BIOLOGY governs LIFE

In 1943, Erwin Schrödinger gave a series of talks in Trinity College Dublin which were later collected in his seminal 1944 book, What is Life? For the first time in the history of science, a physicist fished in unfamiliar water and speculated that quantum mechanics might play a role in genetic stability and biological order.

Today, experimental evidence evolved Schrödinger’s ideas into fascinating paradigms showcasing quantum effects not confined to physics laboratories but to the very fabric of life. These discoveries revamped classical biology into a deep, quantum-driven framework governing the processes of life itself.

The evolving field called “Quantum Biology” shows Life operating at the “edge of the possible”, harnessing the bizarre principles of quantum mechanics to drive fundamental biological processes.

My talk explores how subatomic phenomena shape the living world, with the most improbable real-world scenarios such as the uncanny navigational skills of migratory birds to the remarkable efficiency of photosynthesis.

Along the way, we look at how magnetoreception in robins relies on quantum entanglement, how photosynthetic systems exploit quantum superposition to maximize energy transfer, and how enzymes use quantum tunnelling to accelerate chemical reactions.

Additionally, we will see how quantum mechanics is what helps to smell a rose.

By Chandrakanth Emani

Research Scientist – Crop Transformation at MyFloraDNA – Plant Genetic Engineering/Plant TissueCulture/Genomics/Gene Editing/Agrigenomics