New smart robot ‘can help define optimal cancer treatment combinations’

A new smart research robot has shown the potential to accelerate cancer treatment research by finding optimal treatment combinations.

Created by Uppsala University researchers, the system is able to plan and conduct experiments with many substances, drawing its own conclusions from the results. Instead of combining a couple of substances at a time, it can process the order of a dozen drugs simultaneously.

The aim is to gradually refine combinations of substances so that they kill cancer cells without harming healthy cells. Over time, the system will be improved further so it can process hundreds of treatments at the same time.

Next, the robot will be made more automated and smarter, as the current version still involves several manual steps that could be eliminated. More prior knowledge could also be built into its guiding algorithm, such as prior knowledge about drug targets and disease pathways.

Dr Mats Gustafsson, professor of medical bioinformatics at Uppsala University, said: "We are now one among the few laboratories in the world with this type of lab robot."