Clarice D. Aiello is a quantum engineer interested in how quantum physics informs biology at the nanoscale. She is an expert on nanosensors harnessing room-temperature quantum effects in noisy environments.
Experiments suggest that nontrivial quantum mechanical effects involving spin might underlie biosensing phenomena as varied as magnetic field detection for animal navigation, metabolic regulation in cells and optimal electron transport in chiral biomolecules.
Can spin physics be established – or refuted! – to account for physiologically relevant biosensing, and be manipulated to technological and therapeutic advantage? This is the broad, exciting question that the Quantum Biology Tech (QuBiT) Lab wishes to address.