5

Education, Training, and Workforce Needs

EDUCATION, TRAINING, AND WORKFORCE NEEDS FOR USE OF QUANTUM CONCEPTS IN BIOLOGICAL SENSING AND IMAGING

Clarice Aiello, University of California, Los Angeles, moderated the final session of the workshop, a discussion of ways to explore and create training and workforce opportunities to establish a truly interdisciplinary quantum biology community.

The panelists were Johnjoe McFadden, professor of molecular genetics at the University of Surrey and co-director of the Leverhulme Quantum Biology Doctoral Training Centre; Wendy Beane, professor of biological sciences at Western Michigan University; Thomas A. Searles, Martin Luther King Visiting Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, professor of physics and astronomy at Howard University, and director of the IBM-HBCU Quantum Center; and Thorsten Ritz, professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine.

Leverhulme Quantum Biology Doctoral Training Centre

Johnjoe McFadden

The Leverhulme Quantum Biology Doctoral Training Centre is a unique cross-disciplinary program that McFadden suggested can serve as a model for formal quantum biology education. It has roughly 20 doctoral students whose supervisors come from biology, physics, engineering, computer science, and mathematics. Students and supervisors engage in national and international collaborations with several research institutes.

Starting the Centre involved multiple challenges. It was difficult to secure buy-in from faculty unfamiliar with quantum biology, recruit external collaborators, select the right students, and set up and deliver a dedicated, interfaculty doctoral program, McFadden said. To attract a diverse and inclusive quantum biology workforce, the Centre focuses on media publicity, interesting projects, and careful student selection. They have achieved gender balance for students, but not supervisors.

To ensure truly interdisciplinary education, all students share a single office space. They are required to teach each other both basic and advanced topics in their fields to improve cross-disciplinary communication and understanding and create a shared language. The Centre also emphasizes continuous, wide-ranging learning and strong mentoring and support programs.

Quantum Biology Interdisciplinary Trainee Exchange Program

Wendy Beane

Beane is in the initial stages of launching the Quantum Biology Interdisciplinary Trainee Exchange (QBITE) program, which she said was inspired by her experiences collaborating with engineers and physicists, who use very different tools, language, and knowledge.

QBITE will enable biology graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to work in quantum laboratories in other disciplines, such as physics, engineering, or chemistry, to gain an understanding of the knowledge, experiences, and challenges in those fields. Another main goal of the program is to reduce siloing of labs and researchers who work on quantum and those who work in biology. She reported that student recruitment has been strong; the next step is to recruit laboratories for the exchanges.

Diversity, Inclusivity, and the Quantum-Smart Workforce

Thomas A. Searles

When asked what they want to be when they grow up, kids often cite STEM fields (Fatherly, 2018). The challenge is to harness that early enthusiasm and encourage science-loving high school students and undergraduates to choose a path in quantum science.

Howard University has a long history of providing top-rate educational opportunities for Black students and has trained generations of Black scientists and engineers (Branson, 1942). Searles now has the opportunity to train Black scientists for the quantum age, where talent is needed.

Although more Black students overall are earning bachelor’s degrees, there has been little growth in the number of Black students in physics. Searles suggested that successful strategies from computer science and bioengineering can help diversify physics. For example, bioengineering is more diverse than other areas of engineering because it meshes engineering, which is historically not very diverse, with biology, which is historically more diverse. He noted a partnership between IBM and 23 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), centered at Howard University and led by Searles. This IBM-HBCU Quantum Center is trying to diversify the quantum sciences, which he noted has even less Black representation than physics (Howard University, 2020).

Creating an Interdisciplinary Quantum Biology Workforce

Thorsten Ritz

Ritz argued that quantum has an appeal that should be capitalized on to create and support new interdisciplinary graduate programs to train the future quantum

biology workforce. One such program, the Mathematics and Computational and Systems Biology Program at the University of California, Irvine, was built by an interdisciplinary faculty team with the goal of training students who can take a multidisciplinary approach toward research in quantum biology.

In addition, Ritz posited that the United States needs a national quantum biology center that can be a focal point for initiating national-scale collaborations and guiding educational programs. Such a center could also advocate for the integration of quantum biology work into every quantum initiative to encourage collaboration and discourage the siloing and knowledge gaps that are seen in every aspect of the quantum sciences.

Discussion

Aiello moderated a discussion that covered specialization and siloing, starting quantum education earlier, and how to support quantum biology.

Specialization and Siloing

When asked how McFadden convinced specialists to support quantum biology research, he answered that it has been hard for different faculty members to understand each other, and there are few shared definitions of even simple terms, such as fast. Learning to collaborate outside of one’s specialty and overcome intimidation early on is important, which is why the Centre exists. Ritz added that successful collaborations recognize and accommodate different fields’ unique cultures. In addition, quantum scientists need to be clearer about why their research is exciting.

Beane noted that siloing is a large problem even within disciplines. Biologists in different subdisciplines can find each other’s work indecipherable. She sees two separate issues: the need to create a quantum biology workforce and the lack of quality communication to other scientists about how quantum biology can advance their research. Inviting speakers, sharing ideas, and laboratory exchange programs can improve awareness and help remove barriers. Searles agreed, noting that those practices can also be applied to undergraduates, who should be encouraged to explore quantum fields.

Starting Quantum Education Earlier

Aiello asked the panelists when quantum mechanics should be introduced in education. McFadden agreed that this should happen earlier than it generally does, and he expressed his belief that a lack of knowledge related to general quantum concepts is one reason biologists are not more interested in pursuing quantum biology. Younger students, who are not yet indoctrinated into a

particular field’s culture, may be more open to quantum’s fascinating aspects than practicing scientists.

Searles also agreed, stating that K–12 students should be introduced to quantum as early as possible, emphasizing the field as a future job opportunity. They may not all get doctorates, but the field’s breadth and diversity will improve. McFadden and Searles also shared that although Black women are relatively well represented, they both have had difficulty recruiting Black men and suggested that sharing quantum messaging with younger students may help. McFadden suggested that a course encapsulating the wonder and weirdness of quantum mechanics would benefit undergraduates and K–12 students, and Beane added that a program that does the reverse—teaching physicists about biology—would also have value.

How to Support Quantum Biology

Aiello asked what institutions and the federal government can do to support quantum biology. Searles replied that a national quantum biology center would be a great start, especially as a place for less-resourced schools and students, and a meeting point for institutes and initiatives, such as the IBM-HBCU Quantum Center, to work together.

Beane answered that both federal and industry funding would be helpful. In addition, it may be possible for institutions to create interdisciplinary, undergraduate quantum-focused biology programs, stitched together from existing courses and staff that could generate interest and feed into doctoral programs.

Ritz noted that training centers are a better model for branding, outreach, and curricula creation than research institutes. He argued that building a prestigious, fully supported, decentralized, national model would be a worthwhile endeavor.

BREAKOUT DISCUSSIONS

To wrap up the workshop, attendees convened for small-group breakout sessions, where they were encouraged to voice any final thoughts on future directions and structures for using quantum technologies to enhance biological sensing and imaging.

Participants were asked to explore technical hurdles; additional existing or emerging quantum concepts, tools, theory, and experiments; near- and long-term opportunities to advance biological sensing and imaging; and ideas for expanding quantum education.

Overall, participants stressed the importance of balance, open communication, collaboration, unity, and understanding trade-offs between quantum and classical approaches.

Participants mentioned a number of technical hurdles, including the inability to measure the quantum properties of light in instruments; lack of simulation of developed-, single-, or few-photon cellular differentiation events; and clumping and toxicity in quantum dots.

Attendees identified a need for more research in a variety of areas. They suggested the following topics as potentially fruitful areas for exploration:

• single-photon measurements of time-correlated spatial properties that enable superresolution imaging and single-photon measurements of light emitted by living cells
• coupling between light and spins
• whether ultrafast biophysics events enable seeing quantum properties of light
• studying coherence timescales in biological systems
• quantum sensing for protein recognition or ion fields
• identifying quantum optics opportunities
• ability to differentiate entangled photons from classical photons
• the gut as a quantum organ
• enhancing cryptochrome fluorescence
• quantum properties of disease, microbes, consciousness, and anesthesia
• nontraditional model systems and plants
• Godel’s theorem to describe self-referential biofeedback loops
• isotopes as chemical tracers
• redox processes
• tracking complex molecules and fluxes

Participants cited the need for new tools and upgrades to existing ones, including the following:

• microscopy and spectroscopy with undetected photons
• conductive atomic-force microscopy of tissues
• single-photon detectors
• devoted quantum microscopes
• use of x-ray free electron laser technology
• advanced UV biophoton-counting platforms
• multimodal imaging methods
• modified organisms to manipulate environments
• targeted sampling of live intact systems
• biosensors for quantum imaging or magnetic field alterations

To enable near- and long-term opportunities, many participants suggested that exploratory, high-risk funding could improve existing instrumentation to collaboratively explore quantum enhancement. They also emphasized the need for collaboration between quantum physicists and biological sensing and imaging scientists, which could be advanced through a dedicated quantum biology investigator program.

To expand quantum education and continue to grow the field, participants suggested

• holding follow-up meetings and workshops to facilitate additional interdisciplinary collaborations across multiple institutions;
• assembling a group to bring quantum education to K–12 students;
• forming a quantum biology society to create a core community and platform for further workshops and training;
• reaching youth through comics, games, incentives, focus groups, and myth busting;
• using visualization tools to engage students; and
• integrating molecular biological approaches for math and physics education fostering cross-disciplinary training.