From Castro to Quantum Mechanics: Marching Through Tunnels With Reactive Oxygen Species

The 2025 Jacobson Lecture revealed a scientific journey that began with the Cuban epidemic of blindness to recent studies of the quantum mechanical underpinnings of Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON). A sudden outbreak of bilaterally symmetrical optic neuropathy and peripheral neuropathy in more than 50,000 Cubans in 1993 had been blamed on a viral infection. Further investigations by our team revealed synergistic toxicity of folic acid deficiency and the consumption of homemade rum containing small amounts of methanol. This research led to subsequent findings relevant to LHON, a maternally inherited mitochondrial disease involving Complex I, resulting in retinal ganglion cell death. Later studies show that this was not due to the depletion of adenosine triphosphate but through the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The quantum mechanical model, which identifies alterations of quantum electron tunneling as the origin of spilled ROS, changes our understanding of mitochondrial optic neuropathies and redefines LHON as a disease of oxidative stress rather than energy deficit.