Applications of Case-Based Reasoning in Molecular Biology

Case-based reasoning (CBR) is a computational reasoning paradigm that involves the storage and retrieval of past experiences to solve novel problems. It is an approach that is particularly relevant in scientific domains, where there is a wealth of data but often a lack of theories or general principles. This article describes several CBR systems that have been developed to carry out planning, analysis, and prediction in the domain of molecular biology. Experts remember positive experiences for possible reuse of solutions; negative experiences are used to avoid potentially unsuccessful outcomes. Similar to other scientific domains, problem solving in molecular biology can benefit from systematic knowledge management using techniques from AI. Case-based reasoning (CBR) is particularly applicable to this problem domain because it (1) supports rich and evolvable representation of experiences--problems, solutions, and feedback; (2) provides efficient and flexible ways to retrieve these experiences; and (3) applies analogical reasoning to solve novel problems.