A Shift in Perspective: Quantum Sensors for Living Systems

Uri Zvi, Ph.D.

Abstract: Biophysical properties of cellular systems are intimately connected to their state and function, with important implications across immunology, oncology, and neuroscience. Yet measuring these properties inside living cells, in real time and at the relevant spatiotemporal scales, remains challenging with conventional approaches. Quantum sensors offer a unique pathway to access such measurements with remarkable sensitivity and nanoscale resolution. A central challenge, however, is translating a change in a quantum state into meaningful information about the state of a living cell.

In this talk, I will describe our efforts to develop optically addressable spin qubits as probes of cellular environments, focusing on nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond nanocrystals. I will show how engineering the interface between the sensor and its biological environment can improve coherence and biocompatibility, while also revealing surface-mediated charge interactions that can themselves become a sensing mechanism. Using these effects, we developed charge-sensitive quantum nanoprobes capable of distinguishing changes in cellular activity, including inflammatory activation in macrophages.

Finally, I will discuss how these ideas can extend beyond solid-state nanoprobes toward molecular and genetically encodable spin systems, including recent work on molecular-scale qubits and fluorescent proteins as optically addressable spin qubits. These advances point toward a future in which quantum sensors can be engineered, targeted, and ultimately expressed directly within living systems.