AMBITION: AI-driven biomedical robotic automation for research continuity

人工智能（AI）正在改变世界。人工智能是世界上许多大公司的核心技术，亚马逊，谷歌，Facebook等影响我们所有人的生活。AI现在开始改变科学技术，现在欧盟大多数人的生活都比过去的国王好：他们有更好的食物、医疗、交通等，这个奇迹是通过基于科学的更好的技术才成为可能的。为了应对21世纪世纪世界面临的巨大挑战：气候变化、粮食不安全、疾病等，我们需要使科学和技术更有效率。我们提出了AMBITION项目，利用人工智能和实验室机器人技术的力量，为英国及其他地区的研究人员提供连续、不间断的远程访问人工智能/机器人增强生物医学研究能力。这将使生物医学研究更加稳健、高效和可重复。英国的生命科学、生物技术和制药行业处于世界领先地位。然而，新型冠状病毒疫情清楚地表明了生物医学研究的至关重要性，以及在任何时候保持研究连续性的迫切需要。然而，封锁和社交距离对研究的连续性构成了严重威胁，迫使实验室关闭，冒着失去多年研究的风险。将人工智能与实验室自动化相结合，也将使科学理论形成和实验的常规部分实现自动化。与人类科学家必须做出所有决定的最新技术相比，这将使结果能够更有效，更快地获得。AMBITION的目标不是取代人类，而是通过推理和数据处理能力来增强人类的能力，以更好地支持他们的决策。生物医学科学正面临着“再现性危机”。尽管可重复性是科学的基础，但目前很少有生物医学结果的可重复性得到测试，当可重复性得到测试时，结果令人沮丧，只有10%到20%的已发表生物医学研究被发现是可重复的。最后，自动化实验室将使科学结果更具可重复性，因为人工智能系统比人类科学家更清楚地描述实验，机器人比人类科学家更准确地执行实验协议。该项目将专注于系统的AI部分的开发，以及使用最先进的机器人设备在现实世界的实验室环境中进行迭代测试。我们最初将专注于癌症药物发现作为第一个示范案例，汇集人工智能和实验室机器人的力量。中期（3-5年）。我们计划将该方法扩展到临床患者护理，并为英国及其他地区的患者提供实时癌症治疗决策支持系统，该系统基于对患者来源的肿瘤材料进行的数百种治疗方案的自动化测试，从而减少动物实验，并为临床医生提供基于证据的实时输入，以供其专家治疗决策。从长远来看（5-15年），我们将在所有生物医学领域推出自动化研究能力和实时治疗指导，特别是抗生素治疗/抗菌素耐药性、炎症性疾病等领域。它们将降低实验室实验的成本，增强研究人员的技术能力（使更精细和复杂的测试成为可能），减少与实验室中人类存在相关的风险（与有害物质一起工作，感染风险），确保可重复性，提高结果的准确性，并确保整个过程的问责制和信任。自主实验室将加快和扩大新药的开发，对患者进行远程测试，并将成为个性化医疗的推动者。

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the world. AI is the core technology of many of the biggest companies in the world, Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. that effect all our lives. AI is now starting to transform science and technology.Most people in the EU now live better than Kings did in the past: they have better food, medical care, transport, etc. This miracle has been made possible through better technology based on science. To meet the great challenges the 21st century world faces: climate change, food insecurity, disease, etc., we need to make science and technology even more efficient. We propose the AMBITION project to harness the power of AI and laboratory robotics to provide researchers in the UK, and beyond, with continuous, uninterrupted, remote access to AI/robotic augmented biomedical research capabilities. This will enable more robust, efficient and reproducible biomedical research. The UK's life sciences, biotechnological and pharmaceutical industry are world-leading. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated the vital importance of biomedical research and the critical need to maintain research continuity at all times. Yet, lockdowns and social distancing pose a severe threat to research continuity, forcing laboratories to shut down, risking loss of years of research. Integrating AI with laboratory automation will also enable the automation of routine parts of scientific theory formation and experimentation. This will enable results to be obtained both more efficiently and faster compared to the state-of-the-art where human scientists must make all the decisions. AMBITION does not aim to replace humans, but empower them by reasoning and data processing capabilities to better support their decision making.Biomedical science is facing a 'reproducibility crisis'. Despite reproducibility being fundamental to science, the reproducibility of few biomedical results is currently tested, and when reproducibility is tested, the results are dismal, with only 10 to 20% of published biomedical research found to be reproducible. Finally, automated laboratories will make scientific results more reproducible, as AI systems describe experiments in more clearly than human scientists, and robots execute experimental protocols more accurately than human scientists. The project will focus on the development of the AI part of the system and iterative testing in real-world laboratory settings employing state-of-the-art robotics equipment. We will initially focus on cancer drug discovery as a first demonstration case, bringing together the power of AI and laboratory robotics.In the medium-term (3-5 years horizon). We plan to extend the approach to clinical patient care, and to provide real-time cancer treatment decision support system for patients in the UK and beyond based on automated testing of hundreds of treatment options on patient-derived tumour material, thereby leading to a reduction in animal experimentation, and giving clinicians an evidence-based, real-time input for their expert treatment decision. In the long-term (5-15 years horizon) we will rollout automated research capabilities and real-time treatment guidance across all of biomedicine, especially fields such as antibiotic treatment/ antimicrobial resistance, inflammatory diseases, etc. In 30 years, autonomous laboratories will transform the health sector. They will lower the costs of laboratory experiments, augment researchers' technical capabilities (making more elaborate and complex tests possible), reduce the risks associated with the presence of humans in the labs (working with hazardous substances, risk of infections), ensure reproducibility, increase accuracy of results, and ensure overall accountability and trust in the process. Autonomous laboratories will speed up and scale up the development of new drugs, remote testing of patients, and will be an enabler for personalised medicine.