It’s one thing to design a pharmaceutical drug. It’s another to know if and why it actually works; not on paper or in a computer model, but inside the chaotic world of living systems, where proteins twist into shape, atoms constantly pull and push each other apart, and molecular interactions are the difference between health and disease.

For decades, scientists have known that these interactions are driven by hidden quantum forces. The problem is that, like working blindfolded, they’ve never been able to measure them directly in biological systems.

Now, that era of blindfolded work may be ending.