The quantum effect in our bodies that will cure eye diseases ......
Age-related macular degeneration is a leading cause of vision loss, and new research has used quantum chemical phenomena to discover how the retina protects it - which could inform treatment.
The leading cause of vision loss in Western countries is age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a deterioration of central vision that begins when droplets of fluid called lipids and proteins accumulate in the retina and damage the cells. Currently, there is no effective treatment for AMD, and it remains unclear how a healthy eye can prevent this "accumulation.
Recently, researchers at Yale University and the University of Tübingen in Germany discovered part of the eye's protective mechanism, which involves an unusual quantum chemical reaction in melanin - it removes lipofuscin. The team says the discovery could inform future treatments for AMD.
The results were published May 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Notably, the first author of the paper is Yanan Lyu, a researcher at Shanghai First People's Hospital.
The research results, titled "Chemiexcitation and melanin in photoreceptor disc turnover and prevention of macular degeneration," were published in the in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"It's starting to look like melanin is nature's solution to a variety of biological challenges," said Douglas E. Brash, professor of therapeutic radiology and dermatology at Yale University and co-author of the new study.
Photoreceptors are special cells in the eye that convert light into signals that are then transmitted to the brain. The exterior of these cells includes stacks of membranes called "discs," which are filled with hormonal proteins, molecules that capture light and convert it into electrical signals. Once exposed to light, the discs at the top of the stack undergo a recycling process in which useful materials are collected and reused. At the same time, new discs are formed at the bottom of the stack. This process repeats itself throughout one's life.
Some of the material that cannot be broken down for disc turnover becomes lipofuscin. As lipofuscin accumulates, it damages the cells in the retina and causes AMD.
Previous studies in albino mice have shown that lipofuscin accumulation and retinal damage occur earlier than in others. So in the new study, the researchers first used high-powered electron microscopy to look at undigested discs in the retinal cells of albino mice and pigmented mice (pigmented mice) that were genetically altered to be models of AMD.
Ulrich Schraermeyer, senior author of the study and a professor at the University Eye Center in Tübingen, said, "There were 10 times more residues of untransformed discs in albino mice than in pigmented mice."
Melanin is a pigment found in the hair, skin and eyes; it varies from person to person and becomes less effective with age. It is also deficient in albino mice, causing their coloration. The team suspected that this pigment might play a role in preventing lipofuscin accumulation and therefore inducing melanin synthesis in albino mice. Ultimately, the researchers found that doing so reduced the amount of lipofuscin in the mice.
Brash is interested in how UV light causes skin cancer. In previous studies, his lab found that chemical excitation (chemiexcitation) of electrons that occurs within melanin can cause a reaction that leads to DNA damage.
Brash says, "These quantum chemical reactions excite a melanin electron to a high-energy state and flip its spin, resulting in an unusual chemical reaction afterward."
To test whether chemical excitation might mediate the removal of lipofuscin, he identified compounds that could directly excite electrons without having to work through melanin, as well as a compound that would prevent chemically excited melanin from initiating other reactions.
"We know that melanin becomes less effective as we age," Brash says, "so once the Schraermeyer lab determined that melanin is necessary for photoreceptor disc turnover and for preventing lipofuscin buildup, we wanted to see if chemically inspired drugs might be a way to circumvent melanin while inducing its effects."
The researchers tested the compounds on the retinal tissue of albino mice.
"Within two days, lipofuscin was greatly reduced," said Yanan Lyu, lead author of the study and a researcher at Shanghai First People's Hospital.
The subsequent chemical reactions that stimulate electron reversal of lipofuscin remain to be determined, but Schraermeyer is optimistic about translating this finding into clinical treatment.
"For 30 years, I have believed that melanosomes (organelles in cells that produce melanin) degrade lipofuscin, but could not identify a mechanism. Chemical excitation is the missing link that should allow us to get around the problem of AMD starting when melanin in the eye declines with age. A drug that performs direct chemical excitation could be a breakthrough for our patients."
Understanding the possible quantum-driven behavior of biological systems can help treat injuries or develop treatments for diseases; this achievement is certainly a breakthrough in this field.
Imagine healing an injury by applying a tailor-made magnetic field to a wound. Such results may sound arcane, but researchers have shown that cell proliferation and wound healing, as well as other important biological functions, can be controlled by magnetic fields that are even comparable in strength to those generated by cell phones - a physiological response that is consistent with that induced by quantum effects in electron spin-dependent chemical reactions.
However (and this is a big problem), while researchers have clearly established this response in in vitro experiments, they have not yet done so in in vivo studies. The obstacles to in vivo experiments stem both from the lack of experimental infrastructure to make true quantum measurements within biological systems and from a misunderstanding of what quantum behaviors in biology are and why they are important.
It is time to further develop this field. Discoveries in quantum biology could enable the development of new drugs and non-invasive therapeutic devices to heal the human body; and also provide an opportunity to learn how nature has built its own quantum technology.
Quantum biologists study the light-matter interactions of biological matter with the goal of understanding and controlling these phenomena.
Quantum biology researchers study the quantum degrees of freedom inherent in biological matter with the goal of understanding and controlling these phenomena. Specifically, quantum biology is not the study of classical biology with quantum tools, nor is it the application of quantum computers or quantum machine learning to drug discovery or healthcare big data processing, and it has absolutely nothing to do with manipulating free will, the origin of consciousness, or other New Age buzzwords.
Experimental evidence consistent with the existence of quantum effects in biological systems has existed for more than 50 years. One example is spin-dependent chemical reactions, which are thought to allow birds to navigate using the Earth's weak magnetic field. Today, there is no doubt that this phenomenon plays an important role in laboratory biological systems. For example, there is no dispute that quantum superposition can be expressed in proteins in solution for long enough to affect chemical processes. To date, however, there is no clear experimental evidence that individual living cells can maintain or utilize quantum superposition states within their molecules, as would be required if birds, for example, actually used quantum processes as a compass.
However, quantum biology is not considered to be a legitimate field of science. This shortcoming is beginning to change, but further work is needed in this direction: in the future, true quantum measurements in living organisms will be needed, using a challenging combination of quantum instrumentation and wet-lab techniques. This is progressing: a large number of quantum biology conference series are also deliberately incorporating inclusive approaches in their workshops.
A final reason for the difficulty of accepting quantum biology as a separate field is the persistence of scientific silos in institutions. If cells and organisms are to function optimally using quantum effects, it will take an interdisciplinary group of experts to collaborate on the problem - recently, Japan has announced the Quantum Life Sciences Institute, which brings together chemists, biologists, engineers, clinicians, physicists and others to study quantum biology research questions.
Reference links:
[1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2216935120
[2]https://news.yale.edu/2023/05/10/quantum-chemistry-protects-against-age-related-macular-degeneration
[3] https://physics.aps.org/articles/v16/79
