Life on the Edge - The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology

348 Pages·2014·12.259 MB·English

by  McFadden, Johnjoe and Al-Khalili, Jim

Life on the Edge
The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology
Johnjoe McFadden
and Jim Al-Khalili
CROWN PUBLISHERS
New York
© 2014
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown
Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
CROWN is a registered trademark and the Crown colophon is a trademark of
Penguin Random House LLC.
Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain as Life on the Edge by Bantam
Press, an imprint of Transworld Publishers, a division of Penguin Random House
Ltd., in 2014.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 9780307986818
eBook ISBN 9780307986832
Illustrations by HL Studios
Cover design by Na Kim
v3.1
For
Penny and Ollie
Julie, David and Kate
Contents
About the Authors i
Acknowledgments ii
1 Introduction 1
A hidden spooky reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Quantum biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Why should we be excited about quantum biology? . . . . . . . . 19
2 What is life? 24
The “life force” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Triumph of the machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
A molecular billiard table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Life as chaos? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Peering deeper into life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Genes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Life’s curious grin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
The quantum revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Schrödinger’s wave function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
The early quantum biologists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Order all the way down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
The estrangement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3 The engines of life 60
Enzymes: between the quick and the dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Why we need enzymes and how tadpoles lose their tails . . . . . 66
Changing the landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Jiggling and wiggling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Does transition state theory explain it all? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Pushing electrons around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Quantum tunneling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Quantum tunneling of electrons in biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Moving protons around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
The kinetic isotope effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
So does this establish the quantum in quantum biology? . . . . . 99
4 The quantum beat 103
The central mystery of quantum mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Quantum measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Voyage to the center of photosynthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
The quantum beat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5 Finding Nemo’s home 138
The physical reality of odors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Unlocking the odor key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Smelling with a quantum nose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Battle of the noses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Physicists take a sniff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
6 The butterfly, the fruit fly and the quantum robin 172
The avian compass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Quantum spin and spooky action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
A radical sense of direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
7 Quantum genes 204
Fidelity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Infidelity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
The giraffe, the bean and the fruit fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Coding with protons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Quantum jumping genes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
8 Mind 240
How odd is consciousness? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
The mechanics of thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
How mind moves matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Computing with qubits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Computing with microtubules? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Quantum ion channels? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
9 How life began 276
The gunk problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
From gunk to cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
The RNA world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
So, can quantum mechanics help? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
What did the first self-replicator look like? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
10 Quantum biology: life on the edge of a storm 300
Good, good, good, good vibrations (bop bop) . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Reflections on the motive force of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Life on the quantum edge of a classical storm . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Can we exploit quantum biology to make new living technology? 323
Building life from the bottom up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Launching the primordial quantum protocell . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Epilogue: quantum life 337
About the Authors
Johnjoe McFadden is a professor of molecular genetics at the University of
Surreyandistheeditorofleadingtextbooksonbothmolecularbiologyand
systemsbiologyoftuberculosis. Foroveradecade,hehasspecializedinex-
amining tuberculosis and meningitis, inventing the first successful molecu-
lartestforthelatterandwinningtheRoyalSocietyWolfsonResearchMerit
Awardforhisfindings. HeistheauthorofQuantumEvolutionandco-editor
of Human Nature: Fact and Fiction, and writes for the Guardian on topics
including GM crops, psychedelic drugs and quantum mechanics.
Jim Al-Khalili, OBE, is an academic, author and broadcaster. He is a
leading theoretical physicist based at the University of Surrey, where he
teaches and carries out research in quantum mechanics. He has written
a number of popular-science books, including Pathfinders: The Golden Age
of Arabic Science, Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed and Paradox: The
Nine Greatest Enigmas in Science. He has presented several television and
radiodocumentaries, includingtheBAFTA-nominatedChemistry: AVolatile
History and The Secret Life of Chaos.
i
Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK has been three years in the writing, although the authors have
collaborated on research in this exciting new field, which brings quantum
physics, biochemistry and biology together, for almost two decades. But
when it comes to such a cross-disciplinary area of science as quantum biol-
ogy, it is impossible ever to become expert enough to explain in sufficient
depth and with sufficient confidence all the science that is needed to paint
the full picture—particularly when it comes to writing the first ever book
on the subject for a lay audience.
It is certainly true that neither of the authors could have written this
book alone, since we each bring our own expertise from the worlds of
physicsandbiology,respectively,tothetable. Itiseventruerthatwewould
not have been able to produce a book that we are both immensely proud
of without the help and advice of many people, most of whom are world
leaders in their areas of research.
We are grateful to Paul Davies for many fruitful discussions he has had
withbothofusoverthepastfifteenyearsaboutquantummechanicsandits
potential relevance in biology. We are also indebted to the many physicists,
chemistsandbiologistsnowmakinggreatstridesinthisnewfieldwhoseex-
pertiseanddeepknowledgeoftheirspecialistareaswedidnot,anddonot,
have. In particular, we are indebted to Jennifer Brookes, Gregory Engel,
Adam Godbeer, Seth Lloyd, Alexandra Olaya-Castro, Martin Plenio, Sandu
Popescu, Thorsten Ritz, Gregory Scholes, Nigel Scrutton, Paul Stevenson,
Luca Turin and Vlatko Vedral. We also wish to thank Mirela Dumic, the
coordinator of the University of Surrey’s Institute of Advanced Studies,
who almost single-handedly put together our highly successful interna-
ii
Acknowledgments iii
tional workshop, “Quantum Biology: Current Status and Opportunities,”
at Surrey in 2012, which was jointly funded by the IAS, BBSRC (Biotech-
nology and Biological Sciences Research Council) and MILES (Models and
Mathematics in Life and Social Sciences) project. This workshop brought
together many of the leading figures—this is still an emerging field and the
number working in it is relatively small—currently involved in quantum
biology research from around the world and helped us feel as though we
were truly part of this exciting research community.
Once the book was in draft form, we asked several of those colleagues
listed above to read through it and give us their opinions. We are thus
especially grateful to Martin Plenio, Jennifer Brookes, Alexandra Olaya-
Castro,GregoryScholes,NigelScruttonandLucaTurin. Wewouldalsolike
to thank Philip Ball, Pete Downes and Greg Knowles for reading through
some or all of the final draft and providing so many insightful and useful
comments that have improved the book tremendously. A big thank-you
goes to our agent, Patrick Walsh, without whom the book would not have
gotofftheground,andtoSallyGaminaraatRandomHouse,forherfaithin
usandforbeingsoexcitedabouttheproject. Anevenbiggerthank-youhas
to go to Patrick and to Carrie Plitt at Conville & Walsh, for their advice and
suggestions about the book’s structure and format, and in helping to mold
it into a final version that is light years away from its initial clunky state.
We are also indebted to Gillian Somerscales for her editorial brilliance.
Last, but by no means least, we wish to thank our families for their
unstinting support, particularly during those periods when we were fac-
ing self- and publisher-imposed deadlines, which meant putting all other
commitments to one side and shutting ourselves away with our laptops.
We have lost count of the evenings, weekends and family vacations during
which quantum biology has had to come first. We hope the book has been
worth it.
For both for us, and for the new field of quantum biology, we hope that
journey has only just begun.
Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden, August 2014