The Quantum Protein Centre = QuP is one of nine Danish centers established by Danish National Research Foundation (Danmarks Grundforskningsfond) grant in 2001 for 5 initially years.
The Centre is located at the Department of Physics at DTU and is currently financed though a 4 year extension grant. The purpose QuP is to investigate proteins as macroscopic quantum systems, which can be excited into various conformational states by, e.g., external electromagnetic radiation. We also investigate induced structural/conformational changes upon ligand binding and interaction of proteins with other molecules e.g. ligands and/or membrane lipids.
We are working theoretically and experimentally to elucidate and explain aspects of protein functions and its interaction with the surroundings on the classical and quantum level. We use theory to predict and make new hypotheses about mechanism and functions of a protein under different conditions. The hypotheses are examined and refined using spectroscopic and electrophysiological measurements.