Professor Daniel Kattnig

The Kattnig group focuses on the theoretical description and experimental assessment of the effects of weak magnetic fields on chemical reaction yields relevant to animal magnetoreception or biological processes associated with oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation. These processes have in common that they involve transient radical pairs, ubiquitous short-lived reaction intermediates whose chemistry is controlled their spin dynamics and whose fate can often be impacted by magnetic interactions orders of magnitude weaker than the thermal energy per degree of freedom, k_BT. We are particularly interested in modelling the quantum effects that underlie these processes and in understanding how these effects can be harnessed in biological systems despite their warm, wet and noisy characteristics, which in principle are expected to lead to fast decoherence. To this end, we seek mechanisms that are able to amplify magnetic field effects, tailor their characteristics to particular applications, or evade spin relaxation. We aim for a fundamental understanding of the governing principles, which will allow us to exploit these extraordinary quantum effects in new technological and medical applications, invite a reassessment of related health implications and provide insights in the emerging field of quantum biology.