Researchers from our Faculty have become the first in the world to demonstrate that quantum entanglement of photons can be used in cancer diagnostics. The Jagiellonian PET (J-PET) team, founded and led by Prof. Paweł Moskal, has discovered that photons from the annihilation of matter and antimatter in materials are not completely quantum entangled. The discovery opens up possibilities for using the degree of quantum entanglement of photons as an indicator in cancer diagnostics.
Quantum entanglement is a fascinating phenomenon that cannot be explained within our classical perception of the world. Quantum entangled photons behave as if one instantly knows what is happening with the other, regardless of how far apart they are.
The J-PET scanner, built at the JU Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science, is the world's first positron emission tomography device that operates based on plastic detectors. (J-PET) opens up new diagnostic possibilities, allowing for not only the imaging of the metabolism of selected substances, but also studying the properties of positronium atoms composed of an electron and an anti-electron, which are formed in humans in the spaces between atoms during PET diagnosis. This phenomenon has not been used in medical diagnostics until now. The first positronium image in the world was made with the J-PET scanner and published in the journal Science Advances in 2024.
This year, Prof. Moskal went a step further and showed that the J-PET scanner also allows for the measurement of quantum information that is qualitatively different from classical information, which in the future may provide us with quantum diagnostic indicators. In the new article published in Science Advances in 2025, it was demonstrated that not only it is possible to measure the polarisation of annihilation photons emitted from a patient during PET imaging, but also that the degree of quantum entanglement of annihilation photons depends on the type of material.
Currently, the world's first full-body PET scanner is being developed in the JU Center for Theranostics founded and led by Prof. Paweł Moskal and Prof. Ewa Stępień. The device will enable researchers to register the pharmacokinetics of drugs administered to the patient. It will be the world's first Quantum-PET scanner with the ability to image the degree of quantum entanglement of annihilation photons throughout the patient's body.
Pictured: the laboratory prototype of the J-PET scanner which was used in the discovery along with its main authors (left to right: Deepak Kumar, Dr Sushil Sharma, and Prof. Paweł Moskal). The image includes a diagram showing the annihilation of an electron with a positron and the photons along with their polarisation planes.
Pictured below: a schematic of the cross-section of the full-body J-PET scanner – the world's first quantum PET scanner, being constructed at the Jagiellonian University. The completion of construction is planned for 2028. The diagram shows the patient and several examples of electron-positron annihilation, which can currently only be imaged with the Jagiellonian scanner, making it a unique research device in the world.