Robot-scientists will lead tomorrow’s biomaterials discovery

Abstract

Biomaterials engineering is tightly linked with progress in its underlying sciences and technologies, such as biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Current establishment of high throughput screening platforms has warranted the need for data analysis as part of biomaterials engineering. We believe that current advancement in artificial intelligence, miniaturization of materials fabrication and application of robotics will eventually lead to the emergence of autonomous, intelligent systems able to perform biomaterials research on their own. In this manuscript, we describe the state of the art in the triangle of material engineering, biology, and data science, and sketch their integration to yield the biomaterials conveyer belt of tomorrow.