{"id":221696,"date":"2025-09-10T23:08:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T04:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/scientists-turned-our-cells-into-quantum-computers-sort-of"},"modified":"2025-09-10T23:08:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T04:08:12","slug":"scientists-turned-our-cells-into-quantum-computers-sort-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/scientists-turned-our-cells-into-quantum-computers-sort-of","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Turned Our Cells Into Quantum Computers\u2014Sort Of"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

For the protein qubit to \u201cencode\u201d more information about what is going on inside a cell, the fluorescent protein needs to be genetically engineered to match the protein scientists want to observe in a given cell. The glowing protein is then attached to the target protein and zapped with a laser<\/a> so it reaches a state of superposition, turning it into a nano-probe that picks up what is happening in the cell. From there, scientists can infer how a certain biological process happens, what the beginnings of a genetic<\/a> disease look like, or how cells respond to certain treatments.<\/p>\n

And eventually, this kind of sensing could be used in non-biological applications as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cDirected evolution on our EYFP qubit could be used to optimize its optical and spin properties and even reveal unexpected insights into qubit physics,\u201d the researchers said<\/a>. \u201cProtein-based qubits are positioned to take advantage of techniques from both quantum information sciences and bioengineering, with potentially transformative possibilities in both fields.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the protein qubit to \u201cencode\u201d more information about what is going on inside a cell, the fluorescent protein needs to be genetically engineered to match the protein scientists want to observe in a given cell. The glowing protein is then attached to the target protein and zapped with a laser so it reaches a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":599,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,1523,412,4,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-computing","category-genetics","category-nanotechnology","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/599"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}