Quantum Proteins Engineered for Magnetic Sensing by Oxford Researchers

Oxford researchers create fluorescent proteins that respond to magnetic fields and radio waves, hinting at new ways to measure aging biology. An Oxford-led team has engineered proteins that can be “seen” not only with light, but with magnetic fields and radio waves, using a quantum mechanical process deliberately built into the biomolecule itself. Published in Nature, the work introduces magneto-sensitive fluorescent proteins (MFPs) and offers an early glimpse of what molecular imaging might look like when biology and quantum physics stop politely ignoring one another. At its simplest, the idea is this: conventional fluorescent proteins let researchers highlight where a molecule is, or when a gene is switched on, by producing light. The new MFPs still fluoresce, but their signal can be modulated using magnetic fields and radiofrequency (RF) waves via quantum spin interactions involving a bound flavin cofactor within the protein structure. In living cells, that creates a second “handle” for detection – one that could prove valuable in environments where light alone struggles, such as deep tissue or messy, autofluorescent biological contexts. Longevity.Technology: “Quantum-enabled proteins” sounds pretty sci-fi, but this research is something far more useful – a genuinely new class of genetically encodable sensors engineered to do physics, not merely glow prettily on demand. The obvious prize is measurement: geroscience still suffers from an almost tragic mismatch between the biological complexity we claim to understand and the crude proxies we routinely settle for, and tools that can report on the microenvironment – local redox state, paramagnetic neighbours, magnetic “noise” around metalloproteins – would be a meaningful upgrade from simply tagging a molecule and hoping it tells the whole story. Just as important is the translational direction of travel: the team’s prototype “fluorescence MRI” concept hints at a future where we can locate gene expression and molecular events deeper in tissue with more specificity than conventional optics allows, which is exactly the sort of unglamorous enabling technology that quietly turns ambitious therapies into monitorable medicines. And then there’s the Calico-shaped silhouette in the author list – a reminder that the longevity industry’s smartest players are increasingly investing not just in interventions, but in the instrumentation required to prove they work, in the right cells, at the right time, for the right reasons; because if you can’t measure aging biology properly, you’re mostly just doing very expensive wishful thinking. From observing quantum biology to engineering it Quantum effects are often discussed in biology with the tone reserved for rare birds and stranger phenomena – intriguing, occasionally contentious, rarely actionable. What makes this study distinct is intent. The authors describe a shift from identifying quantum behavior in nature to designing it as a practical property of an engineered biomolecule, producing proteins whose fluorescence can be influenced by external magnetic fields when illuminated [1]. That control arises from a spin-dependent process within the protein, one linked to the flavin cofactor and the surrounding protein backbone. In plain terms, the protein’s “glow” becomes sensitive to its quantum spin state, and that spin state can be nudged by RF and magnetic fields. The authors report optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) signals from these proteins in living cells, including performance that supports single-cell detection under experimental conditions [1]. For researchers used to fluorescent proteins as passive labels, it is an unfamiliar proposition: a reporter that is not just bright or dim, but physically addressable. Evolution does the design work The route to the MFPs is also a reminder of where modern bioengineering is most effective: not always in meticulous rational design, but in guided search across massive variation. The team used directed evolution, introducing random mutations and selecting for improved magnetic sensitivity over many cycles. After enough rounds, proteins emerged with dramatically enhanced responses [1]. Gabriel Abrahams, first author of the paper and PhD student in Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science, framed it with evident delight: “a hugely exciting discovery. What blows me away is the power of evolution: we don’t yet know how to design a really good biological quantum sensor from scratch, but by carefully steering the evolutionary process in bacteria, Nature found a way for us.” There is a subtle implication here that will not be lost on longevity biotech: biology remains an engineer of last resort, particularly when the target behavior is complex, emergent and difficult to model from first principles. Quantum effects in a warm, wet protein environment certainly qualify. A prototype for spatial localization beyond optics Alongside the protein engineering, the researchers built a prototype imaging setup intended to demonstrate how MFPs might be used for localization, not merely detection. The instrument draws conceptual inspiration from MRI, but it does not aim to replace clinical scanners; rather, it explores whether a magnetic gradient can encode spatial information into the fluorescence signal, allowing a kind of “fluorescence MRI” readout. The authors note familiar limitations that constrain optical imaging in vivo – light scattering and autofluorescence are persistent adversaries – and propose that magnetically encoded modulation could help disentangle signal from background. In the paper, they emphasize that lock-in style approaches can enhance detection by focusing on the modulated component of fluorescence rather than raw brightness, a strategy that becomes more valuable as environments become noisier [1]. This is, for now, a laboratory proof of principle rather than a deployable platform. Still, the direction is clear: turning a fluorescent reporter into something that can be interrogated with fields, not just photons. Sensing the neighborhood, not just the protein The paper’s most intriguing longevity-adjacent thread is its attention to the local physical environment around the reporter. The authors explore how nearby paramagnetic species influence the signal, including experiments involving the clinical MRI contrast agent gadobutrol. That matters because biology, and aging biology in particular, is rarely about single molecules in isolation; it is about context, gradients, diffusion and stress signals that change the chemical neighborhood. The authors suggest opportunities to detect free radicals and other paramagnetic contributors in the surrounding milieu [1]. If that path holds up, MFP-like reporters could evolve from “this gene is on” beacons into microenvironmental probes – sensors that report on redox balance, metal-binding activity or other features of tissue state that are both biologically meaningful and difficult to observe noninvasively. In geroscience, where the difference between adaptive response and pathological drift can be biochemical and local, that kind of measurement capability is not decorative. It is strategic. Interdisciplinarity with purpose Oxford positions the work as emerging from an intersection of engineering biology, quantum science and AI, an interdisciplinary blend that has become a familiar funding priority and, occasionally, a fashionable label. Here, it appears to have been operational rather than ornamental. The paper links its conceptual foundations to decades of research into magnetoreception – particularly the study of radical-pair mechanisms proposed in animal navigation – and translates that understanding into an engineered system. Associate Professor Harrison Steel, senior author, highlighted the unpredictability of the journey: “Our study highlights how difficult it is to predict the winding road from fundamental science to technological breakthrough. For example, our understanding of the quantum processes happening inside MFPs was only unlocked thanks to experts who have spent decades studying how birds navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field. Meanwhile, the proteins that provided the starting point for engineering MFPs originated in the common oat!” If the oat detail reads like whimsy, it is also an argument for broad biological exploration – the sort that tends to look inefficient until it suddenly looks inevitable. Translation will be the hard part It is worth keeping one’s feet on the ground. The demonstrations here are in controlled experimental settings, including living bacterial cells, with custom instrumentation and carefully managed conditions. Moving from that to mammalian tissues and clinically relevant contexts requires solving a stack of challenges: expression systems, delivery, safety, calibration, signal penetration and hardware integration among them. Yet the conceptual advance is not trivial. A genetically encoded reporter that can be addressed magnetically has the potential to extend molecular imaging in directions that conventional fluorescence cannot easily reach. For longevity biotech, where the challenge is often less “can we intervene?” and more “can we measure what we changed?”, such tools may end up being quietly influential. A new language for living systems The longevity field is learning, sometimes painfully, that interventions without measurement are a bet placed in the dark. If MFPs mature into robust platforms, they may not merely illuminate biology; they may give us a new way to interrogate it, with the kind of physical specificity that makes complex systems slightly less slippery. Three words matter here. Signal. Context. Proof. Images courtesy of The University of Oxford. Main image shows members of the research team. L–R: Christiane Timmel, Kirill Sechkar, Vicente Trelles Fernandez, Ana Stuhec, Jack Miller, Gabriel Abrahams, Harrison Steel. Credit: Olivia Gaskin.