ROBOTS with artificial intelligence helping to build new synthetic life forms is thought to be the stuff of science fiction, and maybe even science nightmares, but at the University of Glasgow the concept is now science fact.

Scientists at the university’s School of Chemistry have been carrying out experiments to explore the formation of artificial life forms that are based upon new building blocks not found in nature – some have called this the development of synthetic biology or synthetic life.

They are also looking into the development of “programmable formulations” that could have applications in areas as diverse as drug delivery or new functional materials.

Yesterday the University of Glasgow announced the success of its research team in the prestigious US journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).

In the paper, entitled Artificial Intelligence Exploration of Unstable Protocells Leads to Predictable Properties and Discovery of Collective Behaviour, the Glasgow team show how a robot can help build the basis for synthetic life.

The university stated: “A robot equipped with artificial intelligence was able to build unstable oil-in-water droplets as models for new artificial life forms. It was also able to predict their properties ahead of time even though conventional physical methods failed to do so.

“The droplet-robot uses machine learning and evolution and was designed by the university’s regius chair of chemistry Professor Lee Cronin and his team to autonomously create a range of oil-in-water droplets and evaluate their behaviour using image recognition.

“By varying the range of different chemicals making up the oil and water formulations, the droplets could be engineered to have different desirable properties.

“Once the new properties were discovered they could then be manufactured again, on demand, using a digital code.”

It was back in 2010 that American scientist Craig Venter and his team announced that they had created the first “synthetic living cell” using home-made DNA in an existing bacterial cell.

It raised fears about the whole field of synthetic biology, and Venter was accused of “playing God”, but the potential for developing means of tackling everything from pollution to new forms of communication has led scientists around the world to continue synthetic biology experimentation.

Prof Cronin leads a group that is focused on the potential of complex chemical systems derived from non-biological building blocks.

This research is hoped to have “a major impact on our fundamental understanding of the interplay of chemical systems and to revolutionise modern technologies”, according to the university.

It adds: “The research also feeds into a number of major applications being investigated in the Cronin group with the intention of realising the real-world benefits of the fundamental science being conducted.

“These applications range from developing materials for solar fuel devices to producing potential drug and drug delivery candidates.”

The research is funded by the University of Glasgow complex chemistry initiative as well as the European Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Additionally, the business activity of Cronin Group Plc, the AIM listed company of which Prof Cronin is the founding scientific director, is the digitisation of chemical space.

Prof Cronin said: “This work is exciting as it shows that we are able to use machine learning and a novel robotic platform to understand the system in ways that cannot be done using conventional laboratory methods, including the discovery of ‘swarm-like’ group behaviour of the droplets, akin to flocking birds.

“Achieving lifelike behaviours such as this are important in our mission to make new lifeforms, and these droplets may be considered ‘protocells’ – simplified models of living cells.”