Quantum biology

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The quantum biology is the name of a branch of biophysics . It deals with the effects of quanta on living cells of an organism and examines the energetic processes and changes that may occur in the area of atoms and molecules .

history

Niels Bohr and Pascual Jordan

The origins of quantum biology go back to the early 20th century , when the mathematical foundations in quantum mechanics were laid in 1927 by the physicists Niels Bohr , Werner Heisenberg , Wolfgang Pauli , Erwin Schrödinger , Paul Dirac , Enrico Fermi and others. The Danish physicist Niels Bohr contributed to the development of modern quantum physics with his contributions to atomic structure and early quantum theories , for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 .

In 1927, in a lecture in the Italian city of Como , Bohr treated the problems of quantum mechanics, the conditions under which certain phenomena appear, and introduced the concept of complementarity . He also asked himself whether similar concepts also led to findings in other natural sciences. In 1929, Bohr gave a lecture at the Scandinavian Meeting of Natural Scientists entitled The atomic theory and the fundamental principles underlying the description of nature ( " The atomic theory and the fundamental principles underlying the description of nature "). After explaining the successes of quantum mechanics in describing nature on the atomic and subatomic level, he finally dealt with the question of whether these discoveries in quantum mechanics can also explain “problems relating to living organisms” in biology. To this day it is not clear what he meant by the problems of living organisms, but he noted that the discoveries may have an influence on the explanation of certain phenomena in living organisms. After returning to Germany and teaching at the University of Rostock , he stayed in constant correspondence with the German physicist Pascual Jordan for the next few years, exchanging ideas on the relationship between physics and biology, which ultimately led to a scientific publication called first publication on quantum biology is considered. This was published by Jordan in November 1932 in the journal Die Naturwissenschaften with the title Quantum Mechanics and the Basic Problems of Biology and Psychology . In this publication, Jordan linked the theories of organicism with those of quantum mechanics by claiming that the laws of life, which were still unknown to them, were determined by the laws of quantum mechanics, especially the laws of chance and probability ( indeterminism ) and these have been adapted in some way to the scale for living organisms and described this phenomenon as reinforcement theory . Based on Bohr's theory of the irreversible act of reinforcement , a sharp focus on certain conditions can be achieved through observation. Jordan believed that living organisms convey the amplification in a different way than inanimate matter, for example a Geiger-Müller counter tube . He was convinced that he could extend the indeterminism of the subatomic level of quantum mechanics to the macroscopic level of biology. Furthermore, he made a connection between quantum mechanics and psychology to explain free will .

Jordan's belief that living organisms have the ability to "amplify" the subatomic quantum level into the macroscopic level is reflected in many modern approaches to quantum biology. When Jordan joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party in 1933, his theories increasingly adapted to the ideology of the National Socialists . As early as November 1932, Jordan became known as a sympathizer of Nazi ideology, claiming that the concept of a single dictatorial leader was a central principle of living organisms.

“We know that in a bacterium, among the immensely large number of molecules that make up this […] being […], there is a very small number of special molecules endowed with a dictatorial authority over the entire organism; they form a control center of the living cell. The absorption of a light quantum somewhere outside this control center cannot kill the cell any more than a large nation can be destroyed by the killing of a single soldier. The absorption of a light quantum in the control center of the cell can lead to death and disintegration of the whole organism - much like a successful assassination attempt against a leading statesman can lead an entire nation into a far-reaching process of disintegration. "

- Pascual Jordan : Quantum Mechanics and the Basic Problems of Biology and Psychology , 1932

Jordan also noted that inanimate matter is determined by the arbitrary mean motion of millions of particles and that a single molecule has no effect on the entire object. Those molecules that form the “control center” control the entire organism by “strengthening” the principles that determine the arbitrary movement at the quantum level in living cells (such as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle ) so that they affect the entire organism. In 1941 Pascual Jordan published a book entitled The Physics and the Mysteries of Organic Life , in which he explored the fundamental question of whether the laws of atomic and quantum physics are essential for life.

Niels Bohr and Max Delbrück

On August 15, 1932, Bohr gave a lecture on Light and Life at the International Congress on Light Therapy in Copenhagen . He said that the concept of complementarity could contribute to an understanding of biological phenomena. The then 26-year-old postdoc Max Delbrück attended his lecture , with Bohr being his mentor the previous summer. Delbrück later described that this lecture by Bohr should have determined his scientific career. He investigated the question of whether complementarity also occurs in biology and thus deepened his interest in the subject. In 1935 Delbrück was one of the authors (in addition to the Russian biologist Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky and the German biophysicist Karl Guenther Room ) of the so-called Three men work in which they proposed that the concept of the hit theory in the 1920s by Friedrich Dessauer introduced can be used to calculate the size of a gene based on its susceptibility to ionizing radiation , e.g. B. X-rays to determine. They suspected that a radiation quantum hits a locally limited target made up of a few molecules and could thus influence it in the cell. Your publication On the Nature of Gene Mutation and Gene Structure provided the template for Erwin Schrödinger's book What is life? Furthermore, Delbrück had a great influence on molecular genetics . He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969 for his discovery of bacterial viral resistance, which evolved from beneficial gene mutations .

The Cambridge Theoretical Biology Club

The interest in a physical basis for life was not limited to continental Europe. In the summer of 1932, an interdisciplinary group of scientists at the University of Cambridge founded the Theoretical Biology Club and investigated whether life can be explained at the atomic and molecular level. They also wanted to find out whether quantum mechanics could be used to discover new laws in biology. Inspired by the philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead , they also aimed at a fusion of reductionist biology with an organicist philosophy. Many of the club's members were influential 20th century scientists, including Frederick Gowland Hopkins , Joseph Henry Woodger , Dorothy Wrinch , Conrad Hal Waddington, and JBS Haldane . In 1934, Haldane wrote a publication entitled Quantum mechanics as a basis for philosophy , in which he argued that biologists have received little recognition since the dawn of quantum mechanics. Haldane is not an advocate of vitalism , but noted that although the laws of physics apply within living organisms, life uses Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to make certain cases more likely. Living organisms differ from inanimate matter in that living organisms are influenced on a macroscopic scale by individual processes at the quantum level.

Erwin Schrödinger

After fleeing the Nazi state , Erwin Schrödinger settled in Ireland and published a book in 1944 with the title What is life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell . The book is based on public lectures that Schrödinger gave in February 1943 under the direction of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies , where he was Director of Theoretical Physics at Trinity College , Dublin . The lectures attracted an audience of about 400 people who had been warned “that the subject was difficult and that the lectures could not be called popular, although the physicist's most feared weapon, mathematical deduction , would hardly be used . "Schrödinger's lectures focused on an important question:

"How can the events in space and time which take place within the spatial boundary of a living organism be accounted for by physics and chemistry?"

"How can the events in space and time that take place within the spatial limits of a living organism be explained by physics and chemistry?"

- Erwin Schrödinger

In the book, Schrödinger introduced the idea of an "aperiodic crystal" (English. Aperiodic crystal ) before, the genetic information in its configuration of the covalent bonds contained. In the 1950s this idea sparked the motivation to discover the “genetic molecule”. Although some form of hereditary information had been assumed to exist since 1869 , its role in reproduction and its helical structure were still unknown at the time Schrödinger was giving his lectures. Later, when James D. Watson and Francis Crick jointly proposed the double helix structure of DNA based on X-ray diffraction experiments by Rosalind Franklin , they viewed Schrödinger's book as an early theoretical description of how the storage of genetic information works and saw the book independently as their source of inspiration initial research.

Quantum Biological Effects

Friedrich Dessauer is considered the founder of quantum biology, who transferred Planck's quantum theory to biology and examined the effects of X-rays on body cells. With the help of hit theory , he was able to quantify their effect.

Photosynthesis , the sense of smell and the orientation of birds during their migrations are suspected to be quantum biological effects .

Tunnel effect

One of the central non-trivial quantum effects in quantum biology is the tunnel effect , which in the form of proton and electron tunnels either enables, influences or intensifies biochemical reactions. Proton tunneling plays a crucial role in spontaneous mutations in DNA according to the Löwdin DNA mutation model. In contrast, electron tunneling is an essential factor in the biochemical repair mechanisms of DNA through redox cofactors as well as in other biochemical redox reactions (cell respiration, photosynthesis), but also plays a role in enzymatic catalysis .

Quantum coherence

The strongest indications for a role of quantum coherence in molecular biological processes relate to the energy transport during photosynthesis. So far, there are indirect indications of the involvement of quantum coherence a. for new models to explain the sense of smell and to explain how birds navigate through the perception of the earth's magnetic field (bird compass).

See also

literature

  • Journal for quantum theoretical biology. Lüneburg: Walter (1960–1972; 1978–1980) ISSN  0172-9411
  • Kurt Sommermeyer: Quantum physics of radiation effects in biology and medicine. Leipzig: Geest & Portig 1952
  • Friedrich Dessauer: Quantum Biology: Introduction to a New Branch of Knowledge. Berlin; Göttingen; Heidelberg: Springer 1954 (2nd edition, edited and supplemented by Kurt Sommermeyer 1964)
  • Pascual Jordan : The Physics and the Secret of Organic Life. Braunschweig: Vieweg 2 1943
  • Karl Kaindl: Quantum Biology. Vienna: Hollinek 1951
  • Gisela Rink: Prof. Dr. Friedrich Dessauer (1881 - 1963): his way to deep therapy, quantum biology and natural philosophy. Frankfurt (Main), Univ., Diss., 1991
  • Elisabeth Rieper: Quantum coherence in biological systems. Singapore, Univ., Diss., 2011 full text

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quantum biology definition in Duden .
  2. ↑ Non-trivial quantum effects in biological systems "So far it is still completely open whether and how nature makes use of such fragile quantum phenomena." Maike Pollmann in Wissenschaft-Online (August 20, 2008).
  3. ↑ a b c Johnjoe McFadden, Jim Al-Khalili: The origins of quantum biology. In: Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. Volume 474, 2018, doi : 10.1098 / rspa.2018.0674 .
  4. ↑ Don Howard: Who Invented the Copenhagen Interpretation? A Study in Mythology. Pt. 2: Symposium Papers: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (PSA 2002) In: Philosophy of Science. Volume 71, December 2004, pp. 669-682
  5. ↑ Dugald Murdoch: Niels Bohr's Philosophy of Physics . 1987, ISBN 978-0-511-56430-7 , doi : 10.1017 / CBO9780511564307 .
  6. ^ Mara Beller: The Birth of Bohr's Complementarity: The Context and the Dialogues. In: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Volume 23, 1992, pp. 147-180.
  7. ↑ J. Kalckar: Foundations of quantum physics II (1933-1958) . Elsevier, 2013, ISBN 978-0-08-087105-9 .
  8. ↑ a b c P. Jordan: The quantum mechanics and the basic problems of biology and psychology. In: The natural sciences. Volume 20, November 1932, pp. 815-821, doi : 10.1007 / BF01494844 .
  9. ↑ a b c d Jim Al-Khalili, Johnjoe McFadden: The quantum beat of life: How quantum biology explains the world anew . Ullstein Ebooks, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8437-1188-3 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  10. ↑ Pascual Jordan: The physics and the mystery of organic life. Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig 1941.
  11. ↑ Niels Bohr: Light and Life. In: Nature. Volume 133, March 25, 1933, pp. 421-423.
  12. ↑ Niels Bohr: Light and Life. In: Nature. Volume 133, April 1, 1933, pp. 457-459.
  13. ^ The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr . Essays, 1932-1957, on Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge. tape 2 . Ox Bow Press, Woodbridge (Connecticut) 1987, ISBN 978-0-918024-53-4 , pp. 4-12 .
  14. ↑ Niels Bohr: Light and Life. In: Natural Sciences. Volume 21, 1933, pp. 245-250
  15. ↑ Carolyn Harding: Interview with Max Delbrück. (PDF) In: Caltech Archives. California Institute of Technology, 1979, accessed March 8, 2020 .
  16. ↑ Max Delbrück: Light and Life III. In: Carlsberg Research Communications. Volume 41, Number 6, 1976, p. 299.
  17. ↑ Max Delbrück: A Physicist Looks at Biology. In: Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. Volume 38, 1949, pp. 173-190.
  18. ↑ John Cairns, Gunther S. Stent, James Watson: Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology . Cold Spring Harbor Biological Laboratory of Quantitative Biology, New York 1966, pp. 22 .
  19. ^ NW Timofejew-Ressowski, KG Zimmer, M. Delbrück: About the nature of the gene mutation and the gene structure. (PDF) In: News from the Society of Sciences in Goettingen. Mathematical-physical class. Division 6, Biology. Volume 13, 1935, p. 190.
  20. ^ A b Erwin Schrödinger: What is life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell. (PDF) Cambridge University Press, London 1944.
  21. ↑ JBS Haldane: Quantum Mechanics as a Basis for Philosophy. In: Philosophy of Science. Volume 1, 1934, p. 78, doi : 10.1086 / 286307 .
  22. ↑ JBS Haldane: Quantum Mechanics as a Basis for Philosophy. In: Philosophy of Science. Volume 1, 1934, p. 81, doi : 10.1086 / 286307 .
  23. ↑ JBS Haldane: Quantum Mechanics as a Basis for Philosophy. In: Philosophy of Science. Volume 1, 1934, p. 82, doi : 10.1086 / 286307 .
  24. ↑ a b Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan: What Is Life? Berkeley: University of California Press, Berkeley 1995, p. 1 .
  25. ↑ James D. Watson: Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science . Knopf, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-375-41284-4 , pp. 353 .
  26. ↑ Book Review - What Is Life? By Erwin Schrödinger, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on July 8, 2007 ; accessed on April 12, 2020 .
  27. ↑ E. Collini, CY Wong1, KE Wilk, PMG Curmi, P. Brumer, GD Scholes: Coherently wired light-harvesting in photosynthetic marine algae at ambient temperature in: Nature 463, 644–647 (February 4, 2010), doi : 10.1038 / nature08811
  28. ↑ Study Bolster's Quantum Vibration Scent Theory in Scientific American 2013.
  29. ↑ Life in the Quantum World in Spectrum of Science.
  30. ↑ a b F. Trixler: Quantum Tunneling to the Origin and Evolution of Life . In: Current Organic Chemistry . tape 17 , no. 16 , August 2013, p. 1758–1770 , doi : 10.2174 / 13852728113179990083 , PMC 3768233 (free full text).
  31. ^ S. Lloyd: Quantum coherence in biological systems . In: Journal of Physics: Conference Series . tape 302 , 2011, p. 012037 , doi : 10.1088 / 1742-6596 / 302/1/012037 . (Full text).