From ASEE First BELL April 3, 2009
BBC News (4/3, Gill) reports that researchers at Aberystwyth University in
Wales have developed “a robot that performs hundreds of repetitive experiments,”
and “is the first machine to have independently ‘discovered new scientific
knowledge.'” The robot, named Adam, “can carry out up to 1,000 experiments each
day, and was designed to investigate the function of genes in yeast cells.”
Ross King, a professor in the university’s department of computer science and
head of the research team, said “he envisaged a future when human scientists’
time would be ‘freed up to do more advanced experiments'” while “robotic
colleagues…could carry out the more mundane and time-consuming
tasks.”
Wired (4/2, Buchen) Science blog reported that the researchers “designed ‘Adam’ to
carry out the entire scientific process on its own: formulating hypotheses,
designing and running experiments, analyzing data, and deciding which
experiments to run next.” This makes it “the first automated system to complete
the cycle from hypothesis, to experiment, to reformulated hypothesis without
human intervention.” The robotic system’s “proving ground…has been the genome
of baker’s yeast,” which “is one of the best understood organisms, but 10 to 15
percent of its roughly 6,000 genes have unknown functions.” Adam was designed
to find “gaps in the metabolism model, specifically orphan enzymes,” find
“similar enzymes in other organisms,” and hypothesize which “genes in the yeast
genome may code for the orphan enzyme.” Over the course of its research, “Adam
had uncovered three genes that together coded for an orphan
enzyme.”
New Scientist (4/3, Kleiner) reports, “The team is now working on a new
robot, called Eve, which will search for new drugs.” According to Stanford
artificial intelligence researcher Will Bridewell, “Adam is operating only at
the level of a graduate student. Still, the robot is moving closer to the goal
of an artificially intelligent machine that can cooperate with other scientists
and write up their results in natural language, he says.” In a similar vein,
“researchers at Cornell University…have developed software that can observe
physical systems and independently identify the laws that underlay
them.”
Scientific
American (4/3, Greenemeier) reports that the researchers “are hoping
that their next automated lab, Eve, will help scientist search for new drugs to
combat diseases such as malaria and schistosomiasis.” King noted that, “instead
of testing compounds randomly…Eve tries to determine the best compounds to
study.” The UK’s Times (4/3), National Geographic (4/2, Ravilious), the UK’s
Press Association (4/3), Reuters(4/3, Hirschler), and CNET (4/3, Katz) also report the story.
