9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I'd like to introduce you [br]to an emerging area of science. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One that is still speculative,[br]but hugely exciting. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's certainly one that's [br]growing very rapidly. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum biology asks[br]a very simple question. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Does quantum mechanics, that weird[br]and wonderful, and powerful theory 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the subatomic world[br]of atoms and molecules 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that underpins so much of modern[br]physics and chemistry, also play 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a role inside the living cell? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In other words, are there processes,[br]mechanisms, phenomena in living organisms 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that can only be explained with a helping[br]hand from quantum mechanics. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, quantum biology isn't new.[br]It's been around since the early 1930s. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But its only in the last decade or so,[br]that careful experiments 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in biochemistry labs, using spectroscopy[br]that have shown clear, firm evidence 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that there are certain specific mechanisms[br]that require quantum mechanics 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to explain them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum biology brings together [br]quantum physicists, biochemists, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 molecular biologists. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a very interdisciplinary field. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I come from quantum physics.[br]So, I'm a nuclear physicist. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I've spent more than three decades trying [br]to get my head around quantum mechanics. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of the founders of quantum [br]mechanics, Neil Bohr said, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If you're not astonished by it,[br]then you haven't understood it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, I sort of feel happy that I'm still[br]astonished by it and that's a good thing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But it means I study the very smallest[br]structures in the universe. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The building blocks of reality. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If we think about the scale of size,[br]start with something, an everyday object 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like the tennis ball, and just go down[br]orders of magnitude and size. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 From the eye of a needle, down to a cell,[br]down to a bacterium, down to an enzyme. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You eventually reach the nano world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, nanotechnology may [br]be a term you've heard of. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A nanometer is [br]a billionth of a meter. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My area is the atomic nucleus,[br]which is the tiny dot inside an atom. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's even smaller in scale. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is the domain of quantum mechanics,[br]and physicists and chemists have had 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a long time to get used to it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Biologists on the other hand[br]have got off lightly, in my view. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They are very happy with their [br]balls-and-sticks models of molecules. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The balls are the atoms, the sticks[br]are the bonds between the atoms 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and when they can't build them[br]physically in the lab, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 nowadays they have very powerful[br]computers that will simulate a huge model. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is a protein made up [br]of 100,000 atoms. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It doesn't really require much in the way [br]of quantum mechanics to explain it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum mechanics was [br]developed in the 1920s. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is a set of beautiful and powerful [br]mathematical rules and ideas 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that explain the world[br]of the very small. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And it's a world that very different[br]from our everyday world 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 made up of trillions of atoms. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a world built on probability[br]and chance. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a fuzzy world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a world of phantoms, where particles[br]can also behave like spread out waves. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If we imagine quantum mechanics[br]or quantum physics, then as 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the fundamental [br]foundation of reality itself. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's not really surprising[br]that we say quantum physics 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 underpins organic chemistry. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 After all, it gives us the rules[br]that tells us the rules that tell us 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 how the atoms fit together[br]to make organic molecules. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Organic chemistry, scaled up in complexity[br]gives us molecular biology, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which of course leads [br]to life itself. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, in a way, it's sort [br]of not surprising. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's almost trivial. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Say, well of course life ultimately[br]must depend of quantum mechanics 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -- so does everything else. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So does all inanimate matter, [br]made up of trillions of atoms. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ultimately, there's a quantum level[br]that we know where we have to delve 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 into this weridness. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But in everyday life, [br]we can forget about it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because once you put together trillions [br]of atoms, that quantum weirdness 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just dissolves away. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum biology isn't about this.[br]Quantum biology isn't this obvious. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Of course quantum mechanics underpins[br]life at some molecular level. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum biology is about looking[br]for the non-trivial, the counterintuitive 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ideas in quantum mechanics and to see[br]if they do indeed play an important role 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in describing the processes of life. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Here is my perfect example[br]of the counterintuitiveness 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the quantum world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is the quantum skiier. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He seems to be intact, he seems[br]to be perfectly healthy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And yet, he seems to have gone around[br]both sides of that tree at the same time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well, if you saw some tracks like that[br]you'd guess some sort of stunts of course. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But in the quantum world,[br]this happens all the time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Particles can multitask, they can be[br]in two places at once. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They can do more than[br]one thing at the same time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Particles can behave[br]like spread out waves. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's almost like magic. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Physicists and chemists have had[br]nearly a century of trying 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to get used to this weirdness. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't blame the biologists for not[br]having or wanting to learn 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 quantum mechanics. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You see, this weirdness is very delicate[br]and we physicists work very hard 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to maintain it on our labs. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We sort of cool our system down[br]to near absolute zero, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We carry out our experiments [br]in vacuums, we try and isolate it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 from any external disturbance. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's very different from the warm,[br]messy, noisy environment of a living cell. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Biology itself, if you think of molecular[br]biology, seems to have done very well 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in describing all the processes of life,[br]in terms of chemistry. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Chemical reactions! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And these are reductionist, deterministic[br]chemical reactions showing that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 essentially life, is made of the same[br]stuff as everything else, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and if we can forget about quantum [br]mechanics in the macro world, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then we should be able to forget [br]about it in biology, as well. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well, one man begged [br]to differ with this idea. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Erwin Schrödinger, he of Schrödinger's Cat[br]fame, an Austrian physicist. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He was one of the founders[br]of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In 1944, he wrote a book[br]called "What is Life?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was tremendously influential. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It influenced Francis Crick[br]and James Watson, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the discoverer's of the double helix[br]structure of DNA. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To paraphrase a description in the book,[br]he says, at the molecular level, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 living organism have a certain order,[br]a structure to them that's very 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 different from the random thermodynamic[br]jostling of atoms and molecules 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in inanimate matter [br]of the same complexity. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In fact, living matter seems to behave[br]in its order, in its structure 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just like inanimate matter cooled[br]down to near absolute zero, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 where quantum effects [br]play a very important role. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There's something special about[br]the structure, the order 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 inside of living cell. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, Schrödinger speculated that maybe[br]quantum mechanics plays a role in life. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a very speculative, sort of[br]far-reaching idea and it didn't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really go very far. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But, as I mentioned at the start,[br]in the last 10 years 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there have been experiment emerging,[br]showing where some of these certain 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 phenomena in biology, do seem[br]to require quantum mechanics. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, I want to share with you[br]just a few of the exciting ones. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is one of the best known [br]phenomena in the quantum world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum tunneling. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The box on the left, shows the wavelike[br]spread out distribution of quantum entity. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A particle, like an electron. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Which is not a little ball [br]bouncing off a wall. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a wave that has a certain probability[br]of being able to permeate through 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a solid wall, like a phantom [br]leaping through to the other side. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You can see a faint smudge of light[br]in the right hand box. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum tunneling suggests that a particle[br]can hit an impenetrable barrier and yet, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 somehow, as if by magic, disappear from[br]one side and reappear on the other. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The nicest way of explaining it,[br]is if you want to throw a ball 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 over a wall, you have to give it enough[br]energy to get over the top of the wall. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the quantum world, you don't have[br]to throw it over the wall. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You can throw it at the wall and three's[br]a certain non-zero probability that it'll 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 disappear on one side,[br]and reappear on the other. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This isn't speculation, [br]by the way, we're happy 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -- i'm sorry, happy is not the right word. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We are familiar with this. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum tunneling takes place [br]all the time, in fact 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's the reason our sun shines. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The particles fuse together and the sun[br]is turning hydrogen into helium 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 through quantum tunneling. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Back in the 70s and 80s, it was discovered[br]that quantum tunneling also takes place 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 inside living cells. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Enzymes, those workhorses of life,[br]the catalysts of chemical reaction. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Enzymes are biomolecules that speed[br]up chemical reactions in living cells. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 By many, many orders of magnitude. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And it's always been a mystery[br]how they do this. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well, it was discovered that one[br]of the tricks that enzymes have evolved 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to make use of, is by transferring[br]subatomic particles, like electrons 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and indeed protons, from one part[br]of a molecule to another via 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 quantum tunneling. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's efficient, it's fast, [br]it can disappear 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -- a proton can disappear from one place[br]and a reappear on the other. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Enzymes help this take place. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is research that's been carried out[br]back in the 80s, particularly by a group 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Berkeley, Judith Klinman. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Other groups in the UK have now also[br]confirmed that enzymes really do this. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Research carried out by my group[br]-- so I mentioned I'm a nuclear physicist, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but I realize I've got these tools[br]of using quantum mechanics 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in atomic nuclei and so can apply those[br]tools in other areas, as well. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One question we asked was, whether [br]quantum tunneling plays a role 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in mutations in DNA. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Again, this is not a new idea.[br]It goes all the way back to the early 60s. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The two strands of DNA, the double helix [br]structure are held together by rungs, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's like a twisted ladder. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And those rungs of the ladder[br]are hydrogen bonds. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Protons that act as the glue[br]between the two strands. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, if you zoom in, what they're doing[br]is holding these large molecules, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 nucleotides, together. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Zoom in a bit more. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, this a computer simulation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The two white balls in the middle[br]are protons and you can see that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's a double hydrogen bond. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One prefers to sit one side, [br]the other on the other side of the stands. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The two strands of the vertical lines[br]going down, which you can't see. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It can happen that these [br]two protons can hop over. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Watch the two white balls.[br]They can jump over to the other side. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If the two strands then separate,[br]leading to the process of replication, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the two protons are in the wrong[br]positions, this can lead to a mutation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This has been known for half a century. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The question is how likely can they do [br]that, and if they do, how do they do it? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Do they jump across, like the ball[br]going over the wall? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Or can they quantum tunnel across,[br]even if they don't have enough energy? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Early indications suggest that quantum[br]tunneling can play a role here. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We still don't know yet how important[br]it is, it's still an open question. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's speculative, but it's one of those [br]questions that it is so important, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that if quantum mechanics plays[br]a role in mutations, surely this must 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have big implications, to understand[br]certain types of mutations, possibly even 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 those that lead to turning [br]a cell cancerous. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Another example of quantum mechanics[br]in biology is quantum coherence 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and one of the most important process[br]in biology, photosynthesis. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Plants and bacteria taking sunlight,[br]using that energy to create biomass. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum coherence is the idea[br]of quantum entities multitasking. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's the quantum skier. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's an object that behaves like a wave,[br]so that it doesn't just move 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in one direction or the other, but can[br]follow multiple pathways at the same time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Some years ago, the world of science[br]was shocked when a paper was published 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 showing experimental evidence,[br]that quantum coherence takes place 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 inside bacteria, [br]carrying out photosynthesis. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The idea is that the photon, [br]the particle of light, the sunlight, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the quantum of light, captured by [br]a chlorophyl molecule, is then delivered 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to what's called the reaction center where[br]it can be turned into chemical energy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And in getting there, it doesn't just[br]follow one root, it follows multiple 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 pathways at once, to optimize the most[br]efficient way of reaching the reaction 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 center, without dissipating [br]as waste heat. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum coherence taking place[br]inside a living cell. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A remarkable idea, and yet evidence[br]is growing almost weekly with new papers 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 coming out, confirming that [br]this does indeed take place. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My third and final example is the most[br]beautiful, wonderful idea. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's also still a very speculative,[br]but I have to share it with you. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The European Robin migrates from[br]Scandinavia, down to the Mediterranean 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 every autumn and like a lot of other[br]marine animals and even insects, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they navigate by sensing [br]the Earth's magnetic field. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now the Earth's magnetic [br]field is very, very weak. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's 100 times weaker than[br]a fridge magnet and yet 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it affects the chemistry, somehow,[br]within a living organism. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's not in doubt, [br]a German couple of ontologists 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Wolfgang and Roswitha Wiltschko,[br]in the 1970s confirmed that indeed 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the robin does find it's way by somehow[br]sensing the Earth's magnetic field, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to give it directional information,[br]a built-in compass. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The puzzle, the mystery was[br]how does it do it? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well, the only theory in town,[br]we don't know if it's the correct theory, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but the only theory in town, is that[br]it does it via something called 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 quantum entanglement. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Inside the robin's retina[br]-- I kid you not. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Inside the robin's retina, [br]is a protein called cryptochrome, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which is light sensitive. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Within cryptochrome, a pair of electrons[br]are quantum entangled. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now quantum entanglement is when two[br]particles are far apart and yet somehow 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 remain in contact with each other. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Even Einstein hated that idea, he called[br]it spooky action at a distance. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If Einstein doesn't like it, then we can[br]all be uncomfortable with it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Two quantum entangled electrons within[br]a single molecule, dance a delicate dance 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that is very sensitive [br]to the direction the bird flies 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the Earth's magnetic field. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We don't know if it's the correct[br]explanation, but wow wouldn't it be 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 exciting if quantum mechanics[br]helps birds navigate. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Qunatum biology is still in it infancy.[br]It's still speculative. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But I believe it's built on solid science. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I also think that in the coming decade,[br]or so, we're going to start to see 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that actually it pervades life, that life[br]has evolved tricks that utilize 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the quantum world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Watch this space. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Thank you. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Applause)