Quantum in Biology, Quantum for Biology, and Biology for Quantum: Mapping the Evidence and the Road Ahead
Summarize this article with:
Quantum Physics arXiv:2605.00205 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 30 Apr 2026] Title:Quantum in Biology, Quantum for Biology, and Biology for Quantum: Mapping the Evidence and the Road Ahead Authors:Lea Gassab, Betony Adams, Yashine H. Goolam Hossen, Onur Pusuluk, Iannis K. Kominis, Özgür E. Müstecaplıoğlu, Francesco Petruccione, Travis J. A. Craddock View a PDF of the paper titled Quantum in Biology, Quantum for Biology, and Biology for Quantum: Mapping the Evidence and the Road Ahead, by Lea Gassab and 7 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Quantum science and biology now intersect in three complementary directions: quantum in biology, quantum for biology, and biology for quantum. This review provides a structured narrative evidence map of that interface rather than an exhaustive catalogue or formal systematic review. For each topic, we ask what the mechanistic or technological claim is, which quantum resource is invoked, what the strongest experiments and models establish, which classical alternatives or engineering confounds remain competitive, and what decisive tests or benchmarks would most strongly change confidence. The most mature quantum-in-biology cases remain mechanistically constrained tunneling in some enzymatic hydrogen-transfer reactions and radical-pair spin chemistry as a viable framework for magnetoreception, whereas several higher-visibility topics remain suggestive but unresolved under physiological conditions. In quantum for biology, the central issue is whether quantum-enabled tools improve biological inference relative to strong classical baselines under realistic calibration, dose, throughput, and uncertainty constraints. In biology for quantum, the strongest claims arise when biomolecular structure or self-assembly measurably improves fabrication, integration, or robustness in quantum devices. Summary tables in the Appendix provide a compact cross-map view of the current evidence, major confounds, and the experiments or benchmarks most likely to discriminate between competing explanations. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2605.00205 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2605.00205v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.00205 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Lea Gassab [view email] [v1] Thu, 30 Apr 2026 20:29:30 UTC (4,702 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Quantum in Biology, Quantum for Biology, and Biology for Quantum: Mapping the Evidence and the Road Ahead, by Lea Gassab and 7 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-05 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)