Data from a new Nature study shows the feasibility of engineering a quantum mechanical process inside biological proteins. The study, which was led by an engineering team at the University of Oxford, describes how an engineered protein, dubbed MagLOV “exhibits optically detected magnetic resonance in living bacterial cells at room temperature” with a high enough signal for “single-cell detection.” Full details are published in an open access paper titled “Quantum spin resonance in engineered proteins for multimodal sensing.” That paper builds on an earlier report of the creation of a new class of biomolecules dubbed magneto-sensitive fluorescent proteins or MFPs, that can interact with magnetic fields and radio waves—MagLOV is one such protein. This ability is due to quantum mechanical interactions within the protein that occur when it is exposed to light sources of a suitable wavelength. Their work marks the first time that quantum effects have been engineered to develop a practical technology, according to the developers. Historically, “biological candidates for quantum sensors were limited to in vitro systems, had poor sensitivity and were prone to light-induced degradation,” factors that limited their application, they wrote in Nature. “What blows me away is the power of evolution,” said Gabriel Abrahams, first author on the paper and a PhD student in Oxford’s department of engineering science. “We don’t yet know how to design a really good biological quantum sensor from scratch, but by carefully steering the evolutionary process in bacteria, nature found a way for us.” The process of directed evolution, which was…
