Researchers in the Department of Computer Science are undertaking projects to speed up the process of scientific discovery with funding from the University of Toronto’s Acceleration Consortium.
Assistant Professor Nandita Vijaykumar
Assistant Professor Joseph Jay Williams
Assistant professors Nandita Vijaykumar and Joseph Jay Williams are among 12 grant recipients whose projects are either developing technologies that will support the development of self-driving labs (SDLs) or are using SDL technologies to accelerate discovery.
Vijaykumar and Williams are receiving Accelerate Seed grants which “build accelerated discovery capacity at U of T by helping faculty enter the field or collaborate with those already doing accelerated discovery.”
The awarded projects include:
Nandita Vijaykumar: “An Efficient and Versatile Software Framework for AI-based Automation of Materials Discovery”
Joseph Jay Williams: “Comparison of Traditional and Adaptive Experiment to Accelerate the Identification of MicroRNA in a High Through-put Acute Respiratory Disease Syndrome In Vitro Model”
These research projects are made possible by the almost $200M grant from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) awarded to the Acceleration Consortium last April, the largest federal research grant ever awarded to a Canadian university. The projects being enabled by the grant promise innovative advances in fields ranging from healthcare and climate change to sustainable materials design and food waste-management, the AC notes on its website.
“Using AI and automation to carry out more laboratory experiments in a smarter way, we’ve supercharged the process of scientific discovery,” said Alán Aspuru-Guzik, director of the Acceleration Consortium and professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Computer Science.
“These 12 Accelerate Grants are not only an investment in science but are an investment in our future. The creativity and the diversity of thought shown by the researchers on these projects tells me that the materially different future that the Acceleration Consortium is striving for is achievable in our lifetime.”
Header photo by Polina Teif