Studying cells and their wobbly bits
A new research community is forming at the University in Bergen: Quantum sensing unlocks new ways to research cells.
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Sushma Grellscheid is a professor at the Computational Biology Unit where her group uses computer science to study cells and their components. Together with physicist Justas Zalieckas, she is leading the effort to study biological material in a new way.
Quantum sensing has made a lot of progress in the last decade, creating partnerships of scientists using the technology to analyse cells with a new level of detail.
Grellscheid works at the Department of informatics with a background in biology, but says she finds it exciting to be working across fields.
“Not often do biologists ask; ‘What can I learn about a cell from watching the contents wobble? Scientifically, of course,” says Grellscheid.
Different materials will wobble differently and can reveal what the cell is made of.
“This is the physics angle, and we ask how these qualities change during disease and aging. How to we measure it? What does it tell us about biology?”
Sushma Grellscheid oogling some cells while they wobble.
A new field emerges
While the University of Bergen has already had a research environment within quantum physics, the new “quantum revolution” is leading to new collaborations and projects across the sciences.
“We already have the competency, so we will be doing work in this field no matter what. The question is whether we’ll be in the forefront of the quantum revolution, or if we’ll be a niche.”
Aiming for the first option, Zalieckas and Grellscheid have applied to the NFR to co-lead a new center called “CellPHY”.
The centre would use quantum sensing to research living cells as systems, mapping electromagnetic, thermal, and chemical fields within cells.
Grellscheid is highly motivated for the new era of quantum sensing:
“We need to use modern computing power to study systems as a whole, and this approach is birthing a new field of study – Systems Physics of the Cell."
Systems Physics of the Cell
A new way of sudying cells have brought scientists from all over the Faculty of Science and Technology together to apply for a new research center: CellPHY.
Along with people from the University of Bergen, the centre includes Rohit Pappu from Washington University's McKelvey School of Engineering and Halim Kusumaatmaja from The University of Edinburgh's School of Engineering.
