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EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY

Herding an evolving biological population with quantum control tools

Nature Physics volume 17, pages 17–19 (2021)Cite this article

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Populations of organisms can be regarded as clouds of genetic variants evolving passively in response to mutation and natural selection. Counterdiabatic driving — a tool borrowed from quantum control — now offers the possibility of actively controlling both the rate and route followed by an evolving population.

In the past 20 years, biologists have made substantial progress improving models1,2 of evolving populations but the fine-grained control of the precise mutational trajectory and rate of evolution in any chosen population has remained out of reach. Now, writing in Nature Physics, Shamreen Iram and colleagues applied counterdiabatic driving (CD) — a tool which is normally used to control quantum states — to achieve such fine-tuned control of the evolving population3.

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Fig. 1: Collateral Sensitivity.

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  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Daniel M. Weinreich

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  1. Daniel M. Weinreich
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Correspondence to Daniel M. Weinreich.

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Weinreich, D.M. Herding an evolving biological population with quantum control tools. Nat. Phys. 17, 17–19 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-01050-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-01050-w

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