Evidence keeps mounting that life has found ways to harness the strangest features of quantum mechanics: wave-like energy transfer in photosynthesis, proton tunneling in enzymes, even magnetic navigation in migrating birds. But how can quantum-related physical phenomena—which notoriously need cold, isolated, perfectly controlled environments—exist in the “warm, wet, and noisy” environments of living systems?

Graham Fleming, a retiree affiliate, formerly chemist senior faculty scientist, in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division, and Gregory Scholes, a chemistry professor at Princeton, recently co-authored a perspective published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that lays out where the nascent field of quantum biology stands—and where it’s going next.