Biological systems, once thought too chaotic for quantum effects, may be quietly using quantum mechanics to process information faster than anything man-made.

New research shows that this happens not only in the brain, but in all life, including bacteria and plants.

Schrödinger's legacy inspired a quantum leap

More than 1944 years ago, theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger gave a series of influential public lectures at Trinity College Dublin. These conversations were drawn from modern physical and philosophical traditions, such as Schopenhauer and the Upanishads, and were later published in 0 under the title What is Life? 》

Now, during the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology in 2025, Philip Culian – a theoretical physicist and founding director of the Quantum Biology Laboratory (QBL) at Howard University in Washington, D.C. – has established Schrödinger's basic ideas.

Using the principles of quantum mechanics and the recent QBL discovery, which shows the quantum optical properties of cytoskeletal filaments, Kurian proposes a fundamentally updated upper limit on the total information processing capacity of carbon-based life in Earth's history. His findings, published in the journal Science Advances, also suggest that there may be a link between this biological limit and the computational limit of all matter in the observable universe.

"This work connects the great pillars of 20th-century physics – thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics – and provides clues to a major paradigm shift across the biological sciences, investigating the feasibility and implications of quantum information processing in wet software at ambient temperatures," Curian said. "Physicists and cosmologists should grapple with these discoveries, especially as they consider the origins of life on Earth and elsewhere in the habitable universe, which evolved with electromagnetic fields."

Quantum challenges in living systems

The effects of quantum mechanics – laws of physics that many scientists believe apply only to small scales – are sensitive to interference. That's why quantum computers must be kept at colder temperatures than outer space, and only small objects like atoms and molecules exhibit quantum properties. By quantum standards, biological systems are rather hostile environments: they are warm and chaotic, and even their basic components – such as cells – are considered large.

But Kurian's team discovered a distinct quantum effect in protein polymers in aqueous solution last year that persists under these challenging micro-scale conditions and may provide a way for the brain to protect itself from degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and related dementias. Their findings provide new applications and platforms for quantum computing researchers, and represent a new way of thinking about the relationship between life and quantum mechanics.

In his Advances in Science paper, Kurian considered only three important assumptions: standard quantum mechanics, a relativistic speed limit set by light, and a critical mass-energy density in the matter-dominated universe. Professor Marco Pettini of the University of Aix-Marseille and the Centre for Theoretical Physics of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (France) said: "Combined with these rather innocuous premises, the remarkable experimental confirmation of single-photon hyperradiation in biological structures that are ubiquitous in thermal equilibrium has opened up many new research directions for quantum optics, quantum information theory, condensed matter physics, cosmology and biophysics." "He has nothing to do with this work.

Quantum signals at the speed of light

The key molecule that achieves these extraordinary properties is tryptophan, an amino acid found in many proteins that absorbs ultraviolet light and re-emits at longer wavelengths. A large network of tryptophan is formed in microtubules, amyloid fibrils, transmembrane receptors, viral capsids, cilia, centrioles, neurons, and other cellular complexes. QBL's confirmation of quantum hyperradiation in cytoskeletal filaments has far-reaching implications, i.e., that all eukaryotes can use these quantum signals to process information.

To break down food, cells that undergo aerobic respiration use oxygen and produce free radicals, which release damaging high-energy ultraviolet particles. Tryptophan can absorb this ultraviolet light and re-emit it at a lower energy. And, as the QBL study found, a very large tryptophan network can do this more efficiently and stably due to strong quantum effects.

The standard model of biochemical signaling involves ions moving across a cell or membrane, producing spikes in electrochemical processes that take a few milliseconds per signal. But neuroscience and other biology researchers have only recently realized that this is not the whole story. The superluminescence of these cytoskeletal filaments occurs in about a picosecond – one millionth of a microsecond. Their tryptophan network can function like a quantum fiber, allowing eukaryotic cells to process information billions of times faster than chemical processes alone.

Professor Majed Chergui of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland) and Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste (Italy) said: "The impact of Curian's insights is striking. "They support 2024 years of experimental research." Quantum biology, and in particular our observation of the hyperradiation signature of standard protein spectroscopy methods under his theoretical guidance, has the potential to open up new prospects for understanding the evolution of living systems from the perspective of photophysics. ”

The power of nerve life

Believing that bioinformatics processing takes place primarily at the neuronal level, many scientists ignore the fact that neuroorganisms – including bacteria, fungi, and plants, which make up the bulk of Earth's biomass – are also making complex calculations. Since these organisms have been on Earth for much longer than animals, they make up the vast majority of Earth's carbon-based calculations.

"There are features similar to quantum emitters in the interstellar medium and on interplanetary asteroids, which could be a precursor to the computational superiority of eukaryotic organisms," said Dante Lauretta, a professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona and director of the Arizona Center for Astrobiology, who was not involved in the work. Currian's predictions provide quantitative boundaries that go beyond the popular Drake equation about how hyperradiated life systems can enhance planetary computing power. The salient nature of this way of signaling and information processing could be a game-changer for the study of habitable exoplanets. ”

Biology meets quantum technology

This latest analysis has also caught the attention of quantum computing researchers, as the survival of fragile quantum effects in "noisy" environments is of great interest to those who wish to make quantum information technology more resilient. Kurian spoke with several quantum computing researchers who were surprised to find this connection in the biological sciences.

"These new performance comparisons will be of interest to a large number of researchers in open quantum systems and quantum technologies," said Professor Nicolò defu of ETH Zurich, Switzerland, a quantum researcher unrelated to this work. "It's really interesting to see the increasingly important connections between quantum technology and living systems."

In the Advances in Science article, Kurian explains and revisits fundamental quantum properties and thermodynamic considerations, from a long list of physicists who have identified the essential connection between physics and information. With his team's discovery of ultraviolet-excited qubits in biofibers, almost all life on Earth has the physical ability to compute with controlled quantum degrees of freedom, allowing quantum information to be stored and manipulated with error correction periods far beyond the latest lattice-based surface coding. "It's all in the hot soup!" The quantum computing community should pay serious attention," Kurian said.

The work also caught the attention of quantum physicist Seth Lloyd, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a pioneer in quantum computing and research into the computing power of the universe. "I applaud Dr. Coolian's bold and imaginative efforts to apply the fundamental physics of computation to the total amount of information processed by living systems on Earth during life. It's good to be reminded that living systems are much more computationally powerful than artificial systems. ”

The place of life in the grand design of the universe

"In the age of artificial intelligence and quantum computers, it's important to remember that the laws of physics limit all their behavior," Kurian said. "However, while these strict physical limitations also apply to life's ability to track, observe, understand, and simulate parts of the universe, we can still explore and understand the glorious order within it as the story of the universe unfolds. It's awesome that we can play such a role. ”