Conveners
Quantum biology
- Tjaart Krüger (University of Pretoria)
Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is a highly sensitive technique for monitoring changes in the optical properties of a substance in the immediate vicinity of a sensor surface, this makes it very useful in biosensing and surface science research. The most common SPR setup is the Kretschmann configuration in which surface plasmons are excited using a bulk prism and a gold-coated microscope slide....
During photosynthesis in light-harvesting complexes, energy is transferred from antenna pigments to the reaction centre to trigger photochemical reactions. The idea of quantum coherence playing a role in photosynthesis arose from observations that excitation energy transfer (EET) processes in these complexes are efficient to an extent that exceeds explanation using only classical theory. The...
Fundamentally, molecular biological systems are quantum mechanical. Some of the big questions then is whether or not quantum effects manifest and whether these quantum effects contribute to the function of the biological systems. Studies have shown that migratory birds can orientate using the Earth’s magnetic field, and there is growing traction that this ability requires some measure of...
In many strains of cyanobacteria, phycobilisomes (PBs) absorb light and transfer excitations to the photosystems. In PBs from Synechocystis PCC6803, 396 identical pigments are bound to the protein subunits that differ in their optical properties due to various pigment-protein interactions. This tuning makes PBs efficient in transferring energy from the rods to the core and finally to the...
