March 2026
Two researchers have developed a mathematically testable theory that suggests quantum mechanics, with all its “strangeness,” is fundamental in both the microcosm and the human body.
ILLUSTRATION: Geralt / Pixabay
Quantum physics and biology have long been regarded as unrelated disciplines. Quantum effects were thought to be irrelevant to large, wet, warm, and noisy living systems like the human body. Phenomena like superposition (something existing in all possible theoretical states simultaneously until measured) and entanglement (particles sharing a unified state, where measuring one instantly affects the other, regardless of distance) cannot persist long enough to affect biological processes, it was believed. Quantum mechanics was only seen as pertaining to the microscopic world.
This view is challenged by the growing, albeit still not fully acknowledged, discipline of quantum biology, which rests on the idea that quantum effects are relevant also to living systems.
In a new paper published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, pathologist Neil Theise and oncologist and physicist Jack Tuszynski suggest that all complex biological systems, like our human bodies, basically rest on the quantum world. Theise and Tuszynski show how all the features of quantum “strangeness” — like entanglement, uncertainty, non-locality, superposition, etc. — are evident within living systems, and Tuszynski has provided the mathematics to make it a testable theory.
The authors note that some of the pioneers of quantum physics “anticipated that revisions to classical physics due to strange elements of quantum reality, would necessitate similar changes in biology.”
“In particular Bohr, Pauli, and Schrödinger, were several generations ahead of the biologists of the rest of the 20th century. It is in this 21st century that the contingent and complex natures of biological systems are only starting to be appreciated,” they write.
In fact, science has in recent years realized that there are many examples of quantum effects in living systems, such as in photosynthesis, bird navigation, olfaction and the sense of vision, not to mention the hypotheses of quantum effects being associated with human consciousness (notably Roger Penrose’s and Stuart Hameroff’s OR-Orch theory).
Disruption of quantum processes in a cell by adverse external forces such as chemical contamination or electromagnetic fields will have serious consequences for the functionality of the cell, per Theise’s and Tuszynski’s theory. This may provide new perspectives on both diagnostics and therapeutics, for instance in cancer treatment.
In 2023 Theise published a book on how complex systems behave, “Notes on Complexity,” which “profoundly reframes our understanding and illuminates our interconnectedness,” according to an author blurb on the book.
FJN comment: If quantum mechanics is indeed essential to biology and physiology and, as suggested, linked to consciousness, the conventional understanding of medicine and health care needs to change radically. It is not possible to explain the mechanisms of any medical practice, bar allopathy (materialist-based medicine), if consciousness is not seen as fundamental. Perhaps quantum biology will be the bridge that unites allopathy and the many practices that today are placed under the label of “complementary.”
Written by Anders Bolling
Edited by Liza Horan
