Robotic Scientists Make First Discoveries

April 3, 2009 | Source: ScienceNOW

A fully automated robotic laboratory able to design its own molecular biology experiments has made its first discoveries, its team of creators at Aberystwyth University and Cambridge have reported.

The robot scientist “Adam” was developed to identify genes involved in yeast metabolism. Using algorithms programmed by scientists, Adam formulates hypotheses about the origins of “orphan enzymes”: enzymes for which scientists have been unable to identify the encoding genes.

The robot then plans and executes experiments to test its hypotheses — selecting yeast mutants from a collection, incubating cells, and measuring their growth rates. Adam came up with 20 hypotheses about genes encoding 13 enzymes, 12 of which it confirmed.

To describe Adam’s research, they developed an ontology and logical language. The resulting formalization involves over 10,000 different research units in a nested treelike structure, 10 levels deep, that relates the 6.6 million biomass measurements to their logical description.

Science Abstract