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Joshua Lederberg in Computer Lab
of the Stanford University Medical School, December 1974.
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During the 1960s and '70s, Joshua Lederberg introduced computer science and
artificial intelligence to the biomedical laboratory. He was helped
by computer scientist Edward A. Feigenbaum and a team of interdisciplinary
researchers in chemistry and medicine at Stanford University. In 1965
this group inaugurated DENDRAL (for Dendritic Algorithm), a computer
program that formalized and emulated the inductive reasoning of chemists
in identifying unknown organic compounds. In 1973, Lederberg and his
fellow investigators created SUMEX-AIM (Stanford University Medical
Computer--Artificial Intelligence in Medicine), a nationwide time-share
computer system hosting biomedical research projects at two dozen
universities via the ARPANET. Lederberg helped to establish the central
role that computers play in medical research, clinical practice, and
biomedical communication today. |
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ACME Terminal Indicator Panel, ca. 1969.
In the possession of Joshua Lederberg.
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ACME, or Advanced Computer for Medical Research, was the predecessor
of SUMEX and one of the first
time-share, interactive computer systems dedicated to biomedical research.
Using data supplied directly by laboratory instruments, ACME assisted in
such tasks as predicting drug interactions, managing medication schedules
for heart patients, and tracing the spread of infectious diseases.
Established at Stanford University Medical School in 1966, it operated until
1973, when it was superseded by SUMEX-AIM. |
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U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare,
The Seeds of Artificial Intelligence: SUMEX-AIM
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1980), p. 6.
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This image captures the objective of DENDRAL, ACME, and SUMEX-AIM to
supplement the analytical and diagnostic skills of scientists and
physicians with the processing speed and data-storage capacity of
modern computers.
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Map of the ARPANET in 1973. University of
California at Santa Barbara, Computer Systems Laboratory, brochure
published fall 1973.
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The Department of Defense opened the ARPANET, the first nationwide
electronic data communications network, for non-military research
projects in 1973. SUMEX-AIM was the first such project on ARPANET. |
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Printout of e-mail messages between Joshua
Lederberg, Saul Amarel, Carole Miller, and Harriet Zuckerman,
SUMEX-AIM participants, January 18-21, 1977. |
E-mail communication between scientists via ARPANET had become
a key feature of SUMEX by the mid-1970s.
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Model of the Viking Mars Lander.
Stanford Medical Alumni Association, Stanford M.D., vol. 13, no. 4 (
Fall 1974), p. 10.
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Combining his research into computers and into the evolution of microorganisms,
Lederberg in the late 1950s became involved in the emerging American space
program and in the search for life beyond earth's atmosphere, or "exobiology,"
in his term. Together with electrical engineer and long-time collaborator
Elliott Levinthal (on the right in the adjacent photograph), Lederberg
developed an automated miniature laboratory for the Viking I Mars mission
that would probe for traces of microbial life in the soil of the planet.
Lederberg hoped that finding such traces would yield new clues about the
origin of all life. However, when finally launched in 1976, Viking I
produced only inconclusive evidence of life on Mars.
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