Robot Biologist

Now computers are at it again, but this time they are trying to automate the scientific process itself. An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Vanderbilt University, Cornell University and CFD Research Corporation, Inc., has taken a major step toward this goal by demonstrating that a computer can analyze raw experimental data from a biological system and derive the basic mathematical equations that describe the way the system operates. According to the researchers, it is one of the most complex scientific modeling problems that a computer has solved completely from scratch. The biological system that the researchers used to test ABE is glycolysis, the primary process that produces energy in a living cell.

Specifically, they focused on the manner in which yeast cells control fluctuations in the chemical compounds produced by the process. The researchers chose this specific system, called glycolytic oscillations, to perform a virtual test of the software because it is one of the most extensively studied biological control systems. They used one of the process’ detailed mathematical models to generate a data set corresponding to the measurements a scientist would make under various conditions. To increase the realism of the test, the researchers salted the data with a 10 percent random error. When they fed the data into Eureqa, it derived a series of equations that were nearly identical to the known equations.

More information:

http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2011/10/robot-biologist/