On Friday 30th September the School of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Lincoln hosted our first ever PGR symposium event. We invited alumni who are currently PGR students at other institutions to give a short (10-15 minute) presentation about their research projects alongside some of our own PhD students. 

The fourth speaker was Charlotte Vale, who is currently in her second year studying for a PhD in the Leverhulme Quantum Biology DTC at the University of Surrey. Her research is on non-trivial quantum effects in biological systems.

In her talk, Charlotte started quite generally by talking about what she means by “non-trivial” quantum effects and gave some examples including the topic of her talk – long-lived coherence in biomolecules. Charlotte then proceeded to explain the motivation for her work on the long-lived spin dynamics in tuberculosis drug Isoniazid, the mechanism of which is still not understood.

She finished by mentioning various avenues her research could go down in the future, including looking at molecular dynamics simulations and concepts related to ergodicity in so-called ‘spin chains’.