Autonomous science

I'll assume we are all familiar with the steps of the scientific process. Whether or not scientific research actually follows this canonical procedure, ever since the onset of our digital age, it has not been uncommon for parts of scientific research to be delegated to the realm of robotics and computing. From experiments screening for data to sequencing genomes, software has even been developed to crunch numbers from experimental research to arrive at conclusions. Never before has the human element been removed from the equation until now. British designers from Aberystwyth University in Wales have reaped the benefits of scientific discovery from their autonomous mini laboratory system, dubbed 'Adam.' The artificial intelligence lab-bot hypothesizes, conducts experiments, and formulates conclusions all without any human intervention aside from cleaning any waste product in experimentation.

Adam observed data about baker's yeast to form hypotheses about as of yet uncovered parent genes for enzymes therein. Subsequently, experiments were constructed to test these hypotheses within Adam's fully equipped robotic centrifuges, pipettes, incubators, and growth analyzers. The end result was a conclusion that pointed to three new genes that together coded for a particular enzyme. These findings were published today in Science.

Of particular interest from these discoveries is how these tests that can be run autonomously even on the likes of baker's yeast might relate to our own livelihood. The rise of genomics has given credence to a biological truism that regardless of species, a protein that successfully performs a specific biological function will have that protein structure repeated. Therefore, understanding the biology of other systems can and often will map onto the human genome to help us understand our own biology.