Project description
A quantum leap in detecting oxygen loss in human tissue
Hypoxia, or low oxygen levels, plays a critical role in major causes of mortality, including cancer. Because it strongly influences disease progression and treatment outcomes, accurately detecting hypoxia is essential. The ERC-funded POSITRONIUM project aims to develop a new tomography system to track the behaviour of positronium (a short-lived atom that naturally forms during PET scans and whose properties change depending on oxygen levels). The project will explore whether the quantum entanglement of photons released during positronium decay can reveal signs of hypoxia and will measure these entangled photons using a custom-built tomography system.
Objective
A method for non-invasive assessment of hypoxia (deficit of oxygen in tissue) is keenly awaited in medicine. This project is motivated by the exciting question whether it is possible to assess the concentration of oxygen in the tissue by detecting photons from positronium decays inside cells. Positronium (a bound state of an electron and positron) is copiously produced in the human body during positron emission tomography. Its properties in tissue depend on the size of the intramolecular voids and the concentration of molecular oxygen. Thus, it is plausible to expect that positronium may serve as a biomarker of tissue oxidation. Yet is this really the case? Is it at all possible to disentangle annihilation of positronium after it interacted with oxygen from the annihilation with electrons from the tissue’s atoms? This question has no a priori answer because the number of classical observables accessible by the measurement of annihilation photons is less than the number of mechanisms leading to positron annihilation in the tissue.
Here we put forward the fundamentally new hypothesis that tissue oxidation may be sensed by the measurement of the degree of entanglement of photons from positronium. Theoretically, these photons are quantum entangled in polarization and exhibit non-local correlations. The entanglement is reflected in the distribution of relative angle between photons’ polarization planes. We hypothesize that such distributions are sensitive to tissue hypoxia. This leads to the expectation that the degree of entanglement for photons from positronium interacting with dissolved oxygen differs from the case when it annihilates by picking-off an electron from a molecule. Answers to these fundamental questions will be delivered for the first time. The project will be implemented by using a unique tomography system invented by the PI facilitating imaging of positronium lifetime and detecting the polarization of photons from the positronium annihilation.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences chemical sciences electrochemistry electrolysis
- natural sciences physical sciences theoretical physics particle physics photons
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-ADG
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31-007 Krakow
Poland
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