In 2007 a quantum model was proposed by Graham Fleming and his co-workers which includes the possibility that photosynthetic energy transfer might involve quantum oscillations, explaining its unusually high efficiency.
According to Fleming there is direct evidence that remarkably long-lived wavelike electronic quantum coherence plays an important part in energy transfer processes during photosynthesis, which can explain the extreme efficiency of the energy transfer because it enables the system to sample all the potential energy pathways, with low loss, and choose the most efficient one. This claim has, however, since been proven wrong in several publications.
This approach has been further investigated by Gregory Scholes and his team at the University of Toronto, which in early 2010 published research results that indicate that some marine algae make use of quantum-coherent electronic energy transfer (EET) to enhance the efficiency of their energy harnessing.