The Laboratory of the Future
Welcome by Design
The chemistry, pharmaceutical, or biotech laboratory of the future will operate fully automated in connection with robotics. Employees will collaborate with cobots (collaborative robots) to load analytical samples or feedstocks for reactions. Visitors to the pioneering industry event in chemistry and life sciences, Ilmac Basel 2025, can already explore the right path toward this vision this year.
Everyone will enjoy looking into the laboratory of the future through its fully glazed walls. In a subtly color-accented room, all fume hoods open and close automatically at the right time, robotic arms fetch the correct reagents from media walls, and at another workstation, a shaker moves more than a hundred 500-milliliter Erlenmeyer flasks on a universal platform—without any human intervention. Errors will also be reduced; centrifuges, for example, will no longer be misloaded, since the robot in charge “knows” what to do. To the observer, the entire lab seems to call out: I am waiting for your question or your task.
Few will miss the ergonomically awkward movements that were once unavoidable, such as manually opening fume hoods. Moreover, today’s multitude of laboratory tasks could hardly be managed given the scarcity of skilled professionals.
The tasks of employees will become more complex and inspiring. Freed from many routine duties, they can think further in peace, devise new strategies for the development of active substances or materials, and even propose surprising experiments. These ideas will then enter the laboratory of the future from outside, via mouse clicks and data connections.
This is one possible vision. Or it may look slightly different.
The robots and automation solutions required for this future—non-humanoid by design—as well as the necessary software and interface programming, can be discovered by visitors at Ilmac Basel 2025. Here, through many discussions, they will develop concepts for how the laboratory of the future should take shape in their own companies, tailored to their individual needs. All details about the event, exhibiting companies, and program highlights are available on Ilmac 365, the Ilmac community network: https://365.ilmac.ch/event/ilmac-basel-2025
