Research Areas

How does living matter organize, synchronize, and coordinate its fundamental quantum constituents across many orders of magnitude in space and time?

The Quantum Biology Lab seeks to understand exciton, phonon, polariton, and other collective and coherent quantum correlations in biomolecular environments, which have implications for biological structure, function, and information processing. Our research pushes at the boundaries of conventional dogmas in the biosciences, and in the application of physics to living systems, to uncover new insights with the potential for biomedical impact.  Perhaps we will ultimately elucidate the foundational question asked by Schrödinger: What is life?

P. Kurian, Science Advances (2025)

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Shining Light on Quantum Worlds
Philip Kurian, Howard University

Superradiant Life: From Slime Mold to the Stars
Philip Kurian, Howard University

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Fundamental Theory Development

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Electrodynamic Synchronization of Biomolecular Behavior Far from Thermal Equilibrium

Out-of-equilibrium dynamics can generate giant collective dipoles in biosystems and their aqueous environments, producing nonlinear amplification cascades through the sub-terahertz (THz) to few-THz region and beyond. The implications for (classical and quantum) electrodynamic communication in neural behavior and multiscale information processing abound, from small proteins to entire organismal-scale systems, including the humble slime mold.

Superradiant and Subradiant Effects in Biological​Architectures of ​Quantum Emitters
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Is there a quantum optical superhighway in the cell, and in the brain? Hierarchical networks of aromatic chromophores in protein fibers at multiple scales exhibit unique signatures of superradiance and subradiance, even in the single-photo limit, that may be exploited for energy transport, biosensing, and spectrophotometric detection of biomolecular substrates. Enhanced power from “noise-induced” coherence can be robust to decoherence in a nonequilibrium environment.

Entanglement and van der Waals Allostery in Complex Protein and DNA Systems
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Emerging evidence suggests that enzymes harness quantum electronic correlations arising from collective van der Waals atomic fluctuations in large, many-body biomolecular systems for allosteric behavior. The tantalizing possibility that such collective quantum behaviors can synchronize catalytic processes in the transition state opens new vistas for the quantum information processing capacity of living matter. Which quantum algorithms can be run on such biological “wetware” platforms? And how can we recreate and manipulate these platforms for robust computation in warm, wet, and wiggly test tube samples?
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Enabling Experiments

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​Terahertz spectroscopy
​of biosystems far from equilibrium

In collaboration with colleagues at Howard and Montpellier, we are developing experimental setups to probe collective, optomechanical restructuring (photon-to-phonon transduction) of protein systems in ionic liquids in the near-field, sub- to few-THz regime. Excitations with light, chemical energy, or heat provide multiple levers to modulate potential biological stimuli and relate our studies to in vivo measurements.

Steady-state and ultrafast spectroscopies for biocomputing platforms

In collaboration with colleagues at Howard, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and Elettra-Sincrotrone, we are pursuing a variety of steady-state, ultrafast (sub-picosecond), and long-time spectroscopies to probe superradiant and subradiant states in the quantum architectures of life. In collaboration with colleagues in Japan, we are harnessing the robust computational capacities of the slime mold Physarum polycephalum to find high-quality solutions to the travelling salesman problem in polynomial time.

Nonlinear multi-wave spectroscopies and imaging with quantum light

We envision the next generation of quantum computational tools derived from the robust maintenance of delicate coherences at high temperatures, beyond the old paradigm of nuclear magnetic resonance quantum computers. Because of the high excitation energy of biomolecular qubits relative to ambient temperatures, certain living systems can effectively operate beyond state-of-the-art performance values for superconducting, neutral-atom, and trapped-ion qubit systems. Generation of entangled photons from biosystems with nonlinear four-wave mixing experiments and ultrasensitive imaging of biosystems with weak sources of entangled photons will eventually pave the way for understanding how to transfer quantum correlations in biomatter to the polarization states of a photonic readout.