Quantum Coherence in Transmembrane Proteins?

[uzbyte]

I am presently in a Biophysics lab, and am formulating a project wrt transmembrane protein association in lipid bilayers (based on the 4 stage model of membrane protein folding, i.e. partitioning, folding, insertion, association).

I was wondering if anyone on here has heard of any decent literature (or is knowledgeable on the topic personally) on quantum coherence in such a system? I am a physics/math undergrad but have floated to the more biophysical realm as of late, and I know there are some articles on coherence in biomolecules, but I am having difficulty finding anything concrete--and I don't want to waste too much time on this aspect if there simply isn't enough literature out there right now for me to move forward (this isn't a large scale funded project).

Thank you in advance for any information/links/musings you can offer.

 

[PatrickPowers]

I am presently in a Biophysics lab, and am formulating a project wrt transmembrane protein association in lipid bilayers (based on the 4 stage model of membrane protein folding, i.e. partitioning, folding, insertion, association).

I was wondering if anyone on here has heard of any decent literature (or is knowledgeable on the topic personally) on quantum coherence in such a system? I am a physics/math undergrad but have floated to the more biophysical realm as of late, and I know there are some articles on coherence in biomolecules, but I am having difficulty finding anything concrete--and I don't want to waste too much time on this aspect if there simply isn't enough literature out there right now for me to move forward (this isn't a large scale funded project).

Thank you in advance for any information/links/musings you can offer.

As far as I know quantum coherence is not a factor in biological systems. Roger Penrose that it was involved in thinking, but few agree. Mark Tegmark wrote that such a thing was very unlikely because at biological temperatures coherence is too short-lived to have an effect on anything else.

But I'm no expert on this and would not like to discourage you from looking into it.