ArticleJournal of the Royal Society, Interface2014
The feasibility of coherent energy transfer in microtubules.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 101 citations in OpenAlex.
- Quantum Information Flow in Microtubule Tryptophan Networks.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Quantum Effects in Evolution: Terrestrial Fine-Tuning of Magnetic Parameters.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2026Article
- Ultra-weak photon emission: from oxidative metabolism to DNA-based communication: a review of biochemical, biophysical and quantum biological perspectives.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Review
- Quantum Models of Consciousness from a Quantum Information Science Perspective.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Non-linearity, complexity, and quantization concepts in biology.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- The concept of biophotonic signaling in the human body and brain: rationale, problems and directions.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2025Review
- Ultra weak photon emission-a brief review.Frontiers in physiology · 2024Review
- Electronic Energy Migration in Microtubules.ACS central science · 2023Article
- Contribution of autofluorescence from intracellular proteins in multiphoton fluorescence lifetime imaging.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Fano resonance line shapes in the Raman spectra of tubulin and microtubules reveal quantum effects.Biophysical reports · 2022Article
- Dynamics of exciton polaron in microtubule.Heliyon · 2022Article
- Alzheimer's and Consciousness: How Much Subjectivity Is Objective?Neuroscience insights · 2021Article
- The QBIT Theory of Consciousness.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2020Article
- Consciousness as an Emergent Phenomenon: A Tale of Different Levels of Description.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- Non-Equilibrium Quantum Electrodynamics in Open Systems as a Realizable Representation of Quantum Field Theory of the Brain.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2019Article
- Physical energies to the rescue of damaged tissues.World journal of stem cells · 2019Review
- The Easy Part of the Hard Problem: A Resonance Theory of Consciousness.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2019Review
- Oxidative species-induced excitonic transport in tubulin aromatic networks: Potential implications for neurodegenerative disease.Journal of photochemistry and photobiology. B, Biology · 2017Article
- Revisiting the Quantum Brain Hypothesis: Toward Quantum (Neuro)biology?Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2017Article
- The quantum mitochondrion and optimal health.Biochemical Society transactions · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
It was once purported that biological systems were far too 'warm and wet' to support quantum phenomena mainly owing to thermal effects disrupting quantum coherence. However, recent experimental results and theoretical analyses have shown that thermal energy may assist, rather than disrupt, quantum coherent transport, especially in the 'dry' hydrophobic interiors of biomolecules. Specifically, evidence has been accumulating for the necessary involvement of quantum coherent energy transfer between uniquely arranged chromophores in light harvesting photosynthetic complexes. The 'tubulin' subunit proteins, which comprise microtubules, also possess a distinct architecture of chromophores, namely aromatic amino acids, including tryptophan. The geometry and dipolar properties of these aromatics are similar to those found in photosynthetic units indicating that tubulin may support coherent energy transfer. Tubulin aggregated into microtubule geometric lattices may support such energy transfer, which could be important for biological signalling and communication essential to living processes. Here, we perform a computational investigation of energy transfer between chromophoric amino acids in tubulin via dipole excitations coupled to the surrounding thermal environment. We present the spatial structure and energetic properties of the tryptophan residues in the microtubule constituent protein tubulin. Plausibility arguments for the conditions favouring a quantum mechanism of signal propagation along a microtubule are provided. Overall, we find that coherent energy transfer in tubulin and microtubules is biologically feasible.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.