Could Plants Unlock Quantum Medicine’s Potential? with Greg Engel

We’ve long marveled at how efficiently plants convert sunlight into energy—but no one guessed they were using quantum mechanics to do it. In this episode, we speak with Greg Engel, a pioneering biophysicist at the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the Department of Chemistry who helped launch the field of quantum biology. Engel explains how plants and bacteria evolved to exploit quantum effects for photosynthesis—and how understanding these systems could spark a revolution in quantum sensing, medicine, and neuroscience. Engel’s team has already built quantum sensors inspired by nature’s designs, with the potential to transform how we detect disease, develop drugs, and even read neural signals. The ultimate goal? A new era of quantum medicine, powered by the weird and wonderful physics found in leaves. A new large gift is helping that mission along by establishing The Berggren Center for Quantum Medicine and Biology at The UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, partnering with BSD, UC Medicine and others. Follow Big Brains: LinkedIn: X: Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You can listen to Could Plants Unlock Quantum Medicine’s Potential? with Greg Engel online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Could Plants Unlock Quantum Medicine’s Potential? with Greg Engel is an episode from Big Brains by University of Chicago Podcast Network.

This episode is 00:25:26 long.

This episode was published on Aug 21, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Big Brains when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.