Robot Scientist
Laboratory robot
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Robot Scientist (also known as Adam[5]) 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, Emma Byrne and Steve Oliver.[2][6][7][8][9][10]
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.[11][12] 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[10][13][14][15][16]
While researching yeast-based functional genomics, Adam became the first machine in history to have discovered new scientific knowledge independently of its human creators.[5][17][18]
Adam and Eve
Adam's research studied baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)[2] and is one of two robot scientists along with "Eve"[13][19] (named after Adam and Eve), a robot currently doing research on drug screening.[20][21][22][23][24]
Eve has been used for semi-automated testing for reproducibility of experimental cancer research.[25][26]
