Robot Scientist (also known as Adam) is a laboratory robot created and developed by a group of scientists including Ross King, Kenneth Whelan, Ffion Jones, Philip Reiser, Christopher Bryant, Stephen Muggleton,

Douglas Kell Douglas Bruce Kell (born 7 April 1953) is a British biochemist and Research Professor of Systems Biology in the Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology at the University of Liverpool, and Chief Scientific Officer oEpoch Biodesign ...

Emma Byrne Emma Anne Byrne (born 14 June 1979) is an Irish football goalkeeper who played for the Republic of Ireland women's national football team on a record 134 occasions and served as captain of the team. She spent almost 17 years with Arsenal before ...

and Steve Oliver.

Prototype

As a prototype for a "robot scientist", Adam is able to perform independent experiments to test hypotheses and interpret findings without human guidance, removing some of the drudgery of laboratory experimentation. Adam is capable of: * hypothesizing to explain observations * devising experiments to test these hypotheses * physically running the experiments using laboratory robotics * interpreting the results from the experiments * repeating the cycle as required While researching yeast-based

functional genomics Functional genomics is a field of molecular biology that attempts to describe gene (and protein) functions and interactions. Functional genomics make use of the vast data generated by genomic and transcriptomic projects (such as genome sequencing ...

, Adam became the first machine in history to have discovered new scientific knowledge independently of its human creators.

Adam and Eve

Adam's research studied

baker's yeast Baker's yeast is the common name for the strains of yeast commonly used in baking bread and other bakery products, serving as a leavening agent which causes the bread to rise (expand and become lighter and softer) by converting the fermentabl ...

(''

Saccharomyces cerevisiae ''Saccharomyces cerevisiae'' () (brewer's yeast or baker's yeast) is a species of yeast (single-celled fungus microorganisms). The species has been instrumental in winemaking, baking, and brewing since ancient times. It is believed to have b ...

'') and is one of two robot scientists along with "Eve" (named after

Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...

), a robot currently doing research on

drug screening A drug test is a technical analysis of a biological specimen, for example urine, hair, blood, breath, sweat, or oral fluid/saliva—to determine the presence or absence of specified parent drugs or their metabolites. Major applications of drug ...

.'Robot scientist' holds key to new drugs
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BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

'''Robot Scientist' Could Speed Up Drug Discovery
Sky News'Robot Scientist' Could Speed Up Drug Discovery

Yahoo News Yahoo! News is a news website that originated as an internet-based news aggregator by Yahoo!. The site was created by a Yahoo! software engineer named Brad Clawsie in August 1996. Articles originally came from news services such as the Associate ...

Semi-automated testing of reproducibility and robustness of the cancer biology literature by robot

Eve has been used for semi-automated testing for reproducibility of experimental cancer research.

Prototype

Adam and Eve

References

See also