Our collaborative work with Prof. Bill Parson (UW-Seatttle) is published!
Coherent electron transfer in cytochrome nanowires at 300K. Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 16, 8037–8045 (2025) Selected for the cover
We found that electrons can move coherently along microbial nanowires at physiological temperatures over distances longer than the individual subunit. Our approach overcomes the limitations of prior semi-classical works, which yielded similar conductivities for all cytochromes. We demonstrate that higher nanowire conductivity arises due to the high rigidity of hemes, which confers a million-fold slower thermal equilibration of the protein than other multi-heme cytochromes. Electrons move coherently because they can move more rapidly than these thermal equilibration times.