Green Solutions, Non-Invasive Medicine And More From AI Labs

There are some very exciting things happening in the world of artificial intelligence that have to do with the realm of bioscience.

But in order to understand what they are, it’s important to figure out some of the word salad that often exists around this discipline.

Let’s start with cybernetics – technically defined as “the scientific study of communication and control theory.”

That doesn’t really target much of the work that’s most interesting in bioscience, in my opinion.

We get closer to what we’re talking about when we talk about biocybernetics, the application of cybernetics to biological science and living organisms.

But we’re still kind of a long way from some of the specific use cases and applications that are going to make a difference in AI’s role in bioscience.

The Theory: New Biological Processes

Last week, I wrote a piece about a panel talking about whether we will have physically engineered matter in the future – whether we can actually manipulate materials at an atomic level, based on what could be described as biocybernetics, in a loose sense.

We already know that it’s possible to engineer materials at the nanoscale, but there’s more going on, too.

Take the phrase “engineered living materials.” What does that mean?

A scientific paper on the matter (no pun intended) describes these materials as “composed of living matter or cell communities embedded in self-regenerating matrixes of their own or artificial scaffolds.”

I also did a piece on AI working on lab-grown meat that is grown from cultures that seems relevant here.

Anyway, if you have familiarity with that phrase, engineered living materials, you’re becoming more cognizant of what AI can do here.

Experimentation and Lab Work

Here’s an example of a company that’s on the forefront of developing new bioscience using AI.

Lila Sciences has at least $200 million in funding, and the involvement of important scientists who are laying the groundwork for future innovation. The firm was a spinoff of Flagship Engineering – I covered Flagship co-founder Noubar Afeyan’s commencement address at MIT last year, and should note that the company is currently headquartered in Cambridge, although Lila reportedly has its sights on transatlantic offices in San Francisco in London. The company also has the involvement of other notable scientists like Molly Gibson, John Gregoire, and George Church.

So what is Lila Sciences working on?

Scientist have generated antibodies in the lab. They’re working on developing new materials to take carbon out of the air, and a new catalyst for green hydrogen production.

Essentially, scientists are feeding information into AI entities, and working with them through the scientific process described as the “hypothesis-experiment-test cycle.”

This could supercharge the process itself, for surprising new capabilities that will take most non-techies aback.

Broader Goals and Objectives

Going back to the above paper, scientists suggest that ELMs (engineered living materials) show promise for green energy production, bioremediation, disease treatment, and fabricating advanced smart materials. That is by no means an exhaustive list, either.

The American Chemical Society cites the “positive impact of living materials on promoting sustainability and key future research directions.”

Trail-Blazers in Bioscience

Companies like Lila Sciences are the canaries in the coal mine as far as what this type of work can ultimately accomplish.

Spokespersons talk about “turning the wheel of systemic investigation in search of new discoveries” with an AI Science Factory approach that they say removes barriers between parts of the scientific process.

The company wants to “build super intelligence in science.”

“Lila’s mission to responsibly achieve Scientific Superintelligence is born out of the belief that this is the most important opportunity of our time, and that the leader in this pursuit will be the entity that runs the scientific method at the largest scale, speed and intelligence,” said Lila Sciences CEO Geoffrey von Maltzahn, Ph.D., in a press statement. “To achieve this, we must solve the hard problems to allow AI to autonomously and in a scalable manner run each step – from AI models generating an idea to reducing it to practice with robotics and automation. We’ve made some incredible progress in only a few years and are at the very beginning of this important mission.”

Think about what would happen if we had these kinds of innovations in hand – how everything from manufacturing to medicine would be fundamentally different.

And you can page back on the blog to see some of the healthcare applications which are extremely exciting for non-intrusive surgical results done basically on the nanoscale.

I’m going to keep finding this type of example of the biggest things that AI is doing right now, and we’re going to see a lot within the year, so stay tuned.