MOLGEN

The MOLGEN project has applied AI methods to research in molecular biology. Initial work focused on acquiring and representing the expert knowledge needed to design and simulate experiments in the domain. This led to the development of UNITS, described below. The second phase of research resulted in two expert systems, representing distinct approaches to the design of genetic experiments. One system used "skeletal plans," which are abstracted outlines of experiment designs that can be applied to specific experimental goals and environments. The other system was based on planning with constraints, in which planning decisions are made in the spaces of overall strategy, domain-independent decisions, and domain-dependent laboratory decisions, and the interaction of separate steps or subproblems of an experiment constitute constraints on the overall problem. These two systems were later synthesized into a third system, called SPEX. Current work, known as MOLGEN-II (see the section "The Heuristic Programming Project"), is investigating the process of theory formation in molecular biology. (1975-1984)