Robot Scientist

Robot Scientist
Type of project	Scientific Research
Location	University of Manchester Aberystwyth University Imperial College London University of Cambridge Robert Gordon University
Owner	Ross King
Established	2004
Funding	EPSRC BBSRC

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 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, 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 (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and is one of two robot scientists along with "Eve" (named after Adam and Eve), a robot currently doing research on drug screening.

See also

• Graffiti (program)