Artificial intelligence in the development and design of biochemical processes

This article outlines the use of artificial intelligence in three areas of biotechnology: (a) exploration of new production routes for various bioproducts; (b) design of mammalian cell biofermentors; and (c) synthesis of downstream processing schemes for the separation and purification of proteins. Until recently, all of these areas have been 'knowledge intensive', driven by the incisive expertise of scientists and engineers, and quite resistant to analytic and rigorous mathematical formulations and solutions. Here we describe the 'prototype intelligent system' used in the above three areas, and attempt simple projections on the use of artificial intelligence in biotechnology.