Ed Roberts runs the Immune Priming in Cancer lab at the Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute

By 2036, the ‘generic patient’ will be a relic of the past. The lab of the future will treat diversity not as a variable to be controlled, but as the primary data point.

We are moving from a world where we ask if a drug works, to a world where we ask exactly whom it works for – parsing the complex interplay between genetics, socio-economic lived experience, and ethnicity.

Refinement of the default model

The lab of 2036 isn’t just ‘using fewer mice’, it’s making a more rounded research environment to increase the human-fidelity of our models.

By aligning high-dimensional patient datasets with those derived from next-generation genetically engineered mouse models we will ensure that the mice which are used represent the reality of human biology closely. In this way, mice which are used in research will represent individual patient subsets, and will provide powerful, translatable data. This data will then be able to feed into new digital twin models and help complement organoid and organ-on-chip studies producing an experimental ecosystem more aligned to true human biology.

This isn’t just an ethical victory; it’s a clinical necessity. This ability to improve the relevance of models to patients will also power our ability to represent the population more broadly. With current models of cancer, questions are often asked in a general sense – however, patients are never generic. Each person comes with their own genetic inheritance and lived experience. By 2036 we will parse the impacts of these different characteristics and use them to build better, more inclusive, experimental ecosystems.

This will also involve building bridges with areas of the social sciences to ensure we can use that expertise to drive research to address real world problems. The success of this push will be judged by whether we can engage with – and start to address problems experienced by – minoritised groups. By 2036, we will aim to close some persistent disparities in cancer outcomes.

Asking the right questions

To ask the right questions, you also need the right voices in the room.

By 2036 we will have moved beyond judging success in inclusion based on the proportion of students recruited into postgraduate study. In 2024, the transition from postgraduate diversity to senior leadership remains a ‘leaky pipeline.’ The 2036 lab will be judged not by the diversity of its PhD cohort, but by the diversity of its Principal Investigators. Success looks like a leadership tier that reflects the UK population; 18% from minoritised ethnic backgrounds, 51% female and approximately 40% from working class backgrounds. Success will ensure that the questions we ask are as varied as the patients we serve.

Albane Imbert is the Head of the Making Lab at the Francis Crick Institute. Her team integrates engineering approaches with biomedical research to design and manufacture cutting-edge devices.

Cancer research is moving toward an increasingly systemic approach to discovery, with technology development and integration at its core – and from where I sit, that shift is already well underway.

As a science and technology platform, what I see emerging is stronger collaborations between labs and platforms. Shared projects, shared expertise, shared resources for technology and method development at national and international scale. This means rethinking how we structure labs and institutes: moving toward a seamless blending of technology platforms and research groups with a strong emphasis on applied technology development.

Tech is pushing research forward

From a technology perspective, the biggest structural shift is data generation and integration to address cancer at a systems-level.

Spatial biology and multi-omics are probably the most transformative near-term approach – understanding what cells are doing, and where they are doing it within intact tissue architecture. This is becoming a genuinely powerful lens through which to interrogate cancer environment and dynamics.

In vitro platforms and new approach methodologies (NAMs) – organoids, human microphysiological systems, organ-on-chip (where my own background sits) – will play a growing and transformative role. For cancer specifically, these systems are uniquely positioned to recapitulate complexity and dynamics in ways animal models cannot. They are physiologically relevant, genuinely human – and they can even be patient-specific – and incorporate tumour microenvironment, immune, vascular, and neural components. Their importance extends beyond discovery: In the US, for example, the FDA Modernization Acts 2.0 and 3.0 have formally legitimised NAM-based regulatory submissions, and producing validated, human-relevant preclinical data from these platforms should become a baseline expectation.

I also see a real prospect of reducing the time from diagnosis to targeted treatment using patient-specific in vitro platforms. That will need both a deeper understanding of the biology and function these platforms are meant to reproduce, and substantial investment in the knowledge, technologies, and shared infrastructure needed to develop them with biological realism and integrate them into lab workflows.