Gabriel Abrahams
I am a PhD student in the Engineered Biotechnology Research Group at the University of Oxford. My research focus is the development of novel tools for sensing and actuating biology.
Since 2023 I have a led a project to determine the mechanism of action of MagLOV, a magnetically responsive fluorescent protein developed at Calico Labs. Based on our recent results we now believe this to be a spin-triplet system, meaning it is an endogenous, biologial quantum sensor. For decades researches have been developing quantum sensors with an aim to produce highly sensitive, quantitative, bio-compatible cellular probes, with most efforts focused on the nitrogen-vacancy defect in diamond. Magnetic fluorescent proteins such as MagLOV are instead quantum probes produced by the cell itself, using the same building blocks as the rest of the cellular machinery.