The Sci-Fi of Medical Laboratories

The future of Medical Laboratories lies in the hands of Biomedical Engineers. Automation is slowly replacing the role of the Medical Technologists whom will be redundant when robotics take over the world and humans become a multiplanetary species. The above sentence might sound like a weird sci-fi Elon Musk quote but colonizing other planets is possible. With genetic and software engineering built on the framework of artificial intelligence, the future of humans is predictable via statistical science. We as medical laboratory scientists can now embrace our imaginary instincts and make science fiction into science reality. My imagination of the Medical Laboratory in the future is one operated by machines only. There is a possibility that Humans and Machines could also be symbiotic in this future of medical labs but no pure bred human will be doing blood analysis.

Leaving Earth to reside on other planets will require humans to become half machines (hybrids) or fully biomedically engineered (mutants). This will involve editing of genes to reverse human aging, eliminate human disease as well as enhance human intelligence. Science Fiction has made a lot of predictions about healthcare and will continue to encourage imagination amongst the engineering geniuses of the future. One example is the Tricoder from the Star Trek series. The bottom line is that the Sci-Fi of Medical Laboratories will not involve humans but will be fully automated with artificial intelligence software and robotics hardware. Another example of Sci-Fi is COVID-19 which exemplifies a genetically engineered virus built in a medical laboratory. Science Fact might cause COVID-19 to wipe out the human race and/or change our genetics making us into machines.