Robotic lab assistant

Researchers from

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Universities have created a robot that they believe is the first machine to have independently discovered new scientific knowledge.

The robot, called Adam, has discovered simple but new scientific knowledge about the genomics of the baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an organism that scientists use to model more complex life systems.

Using artificial intelligence, Adam hypothesised that certain genes in baker's yeast code for specific enzymes, which catalyse biochemical reactions in yeast.

The robot then devised experiments to test these predictions, ran the experiments, interpreted the results and repeated the cycle.

Adam is a still a prototype, but Prof Ross King, who led the research at Aberystwyth University, said that his team believes that its next robot, Eve, holds great promise for scientists searching for new drugs to combat diseases such as malaria and schistosomiasis, an infection caused by a type of parasitic worm in the tropics.

Duc Pham, professor of computer-controlled manufacture in the Manufacturing Engineering Centre at Cardiff University, has welcomed the advance made at Cambridge and Aberystwyth.