Experts Predict the Hottest Life Science Tech in 2021 and Beyond

Last year’s Top 10 Innovations judges look into their crystal balls.

Written byBob Grant

| 7 min read

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Through the social and economic disruption that COVID-19 caused in 2020, the biomedical research community rose to the challenge and accomplished unprecedented feats of scientific acumen. With a new year ahead of us, even as the pandemic grinds on, we at The Scientist thought it was an opportune time to ask what might be on the life science innovation radar for 2021 and beyond. We tapped three members of the independent judging panel that helped name our Top 10 Innovations of 2020 to share their thoughts (via email) on the year ahead.

Paul Blainey: Value is shifting from the impact of individual technologies (mass spectrometry, cloning, sequencing, PCR, induced pluripotent stem cells, next generation sequencing, genome editing, etc.) to impact across technologies. In 2021, I think researchers will increasingly leverage multiple technologies together in order to generate new insights, as well as become more technology-agnostic as ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
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From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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