University of Amsterdam
Assembly Line
Autonomous synthesis robot uses AI to speed up chemical discovery
Chemists of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) have developed an autonomous chemical synthesis robot with an integrated AI-driven machine learning unit. Dubbed ‘RoboChem’, the benchtop device can outperform a human chemist in terms of speed and accuracy while also displaying a high level of ingenuity. As the first of its kind, it could significantly accelerate chemical discovery of molecules for pharmaceutical and many other applications. RoboChem’s first results were published on 25 January in the journal Science.
RoboChem was developed by the group of Prof. Timothy Noël at the UvA’s Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences. Their paper shows that RoboChem is a precise and reliable chemist that can perform a variety of reactions while producing minimal amounts of waste. Working autonomously around the clock, the system delivers results quickly and tirelessly. Noël: ‘In a week, we can optimise the synthesis of about ten to twenty molecules. This would take a PhD student several months.’ The robot not only yields the best reaction conditions, but also provides the settings for scale-up. ‘This means we can produce quantities that are directly relevant for suppliers to the pharmaceutical industry, for example.’