If you give an AI agent a robotic arm, an injector, and a live mouse, it might just perform brain surgery.

Biotech founder Gabriel Ocana Santero recently did that using an agent to successfully carry out a brain injection procedure on a living mouse. Though it required some extra steps, it offers a glimpse into how AI could eventually become an active participant in laboratory research.

Santero posted about the experiment on social media and tells WIRED he was interested in exploring what happens when AI agents are given direct access to lab equipment, rather than simply being asked to design experiments or analyze results.

“We’ve realized that we need to connect these agents to a lab to get the maximum value from them,” he says. Santero is the CEO and cofounder of Exin Therapeutics, a San Francisco–based startup using AI to analyze brain activity to develop drugs for epilepsy and neurodegenerative diseases.

AI models are trained primarily on published scientific literature. That means they may miss important information about the research process, including failed experiments, unexpected observations, and decisions scientists make in real time. Integrating AI models with real-world experiments can make the models more reliable, Santero says.

It’s why his team decided to connect an AI agent to a custom-built surgical setup used for performing brain injections on mice. The rig included a motorized device used to immobilize a mouse and a camera that allowed the agent to observe the procedure, move an injection needle, and control the delivery of a compound.

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