Quantum medicine: A quantum–mechanical framework for redox biology, disease and precision medicine

Abstract

Background: Key biological processes underlying health and disease-including electron transfer, redox regulation, and radical-mediated signaling-are fundamentally governed by quantum-mechanical principles. These processes are central to mitochondrial function, metabolism, and cellular signaling, yet their biomedical implications have remained difficult to address using classical computational approaches.

Rationale: Recent advances in quantum computing, quantum sensing, and quantum machine learning enable direct simulation and measurement of quantum phenomena in biologically relevant systems. Hybrid quantum-classical algorithms, such as the Variational Quantum Eigensolver and Quantum Phase Estimation, now provide first-principles access to redox potentials, electronic couplings, and spin-dependent reactions that are directly linked to disease mechanisms. These developments establish the foundation for quantum biomedicine as a translational framework bridging molecular physics and clinical medicine.

Content: This review synthesizes current progress in the application of quantum technologies to biomedicine, emphasizing translational relevance. We discuss quantum-informed modeling of cancer metabolism and redox rewiring, protein misfolding in neurodegenerative diseases, immune and inflammatory signaling, infectious disease mechanisms, and drug discovery. We further propose a Quantum-Experimental-Clinical (QEC) pipeline that integrates quantum simulations with experimental validation and multi-omics clinical data, enabling mechanistic interpretation of disease phenotypes and identification of redox- and spin-sensitive therapeutic targets.

Conclusion: Quantum biomedicine introduces a new mechanistic layer that links electronic-scale processes to clinical phenotypes. While current implementations are constrained by NISQ-era hardware, rapid advances in quantum algorithms and sensing technologies position quantum approaches as emerging tools in precision and translational medicine. Strategic integration of quantum methods with experimental and clinical workflows may accelerate biomarker discovery and therapeutic development.

Keywords

biomedical applications of quantum technologies / precision medicine / quantum biology / quantum biomedicine / quantum computing / redox biology

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2026 The Author(s). Clinical and Translational Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Shanghai Institute of Clinical Bioinformatics.