Photo credit: Shan Ding

The CRUK Convergence Science Centre, in collaboration with the ICR, returned to the Great Exhibition Road Festival on 7th and 8th June 2025. Held at Imperial, the festival brought together researchers, artists, and the public for a weekend of discovery, with the Centre's "Patient Power: Innovating Cancer Technologies" stand in the Future Medicines Zone drawing in approximately 660 visitors. Through hands-on activities and interactive demonstrations, the team highlighted how technologies - from soft robotics to AI and mobile apps - are being developed to make cancer treatment more supportive, kinder and help empower patients along their treatment journey. 

Exploring the future of Cancer Care 

Over the weekend, visitors were invited to experience three activities that explored how technology can improve overall cancer care. Each activity highlighted a different aspect of patient-centred innovation, from AI diagnostics to robotics and digital health. 

Supported: how would you comfort a loved one and could technology replicate it? 

Medical treatment such as scans and radiotherapy can feel claustrophobic and frightening especially as friends and family aren’t allowed in the same room for safety reasons. Members of the public were able to try a soft robotic prototype device which aims to replicate the comforting sensation of a loved one’s touch. The device simulates a warm, gentle, stroking feeling, helping to reduce anxiety during treatment. Attendees shared their views on how it felt and gave insightful ideas on how they would feel comforted.  

The Centre is currently supporting the development of an app to empower patients to improve communication and data sharing during early-phase clinical trials for real time data collection. The app aims to make symptom reporting easier, reduce administrative burden, and offer personalised questions for more in-depth data collection. 

This sparked intriguing conversations with visitors about what features would be most useful for an app like this, accessibility considerations, privacy or security concerns and how the app could be used to support people emotionally going through an early phase clinical trial.  

Enhanced: How can AI be used to help diagnose cancer? 

In a hands-on puzzle challenge, participants raced against the clock to assemble histology slide jigsaw puzzles and determine whether they showed signs of cancer. The game was developed by our very own Convergence Science Centre Students after their Public Engagement Training session.  

The jigsaw puzzles symbolised how AI cuts an image up into pieces and looks for cancerous features in each one. It was also emphasised that AI needs to be trained to know what to look for to avoid false positives and negatives. Some participants completed the jigsaw in as little as 15 seconds, but still not quite as fast as an AI algorithm. 

A collective thank you 

This successful weekend would not have been possible without the researchers, collaborators at the ICR, and the energy and enthusiasm of our dedicated volunteers who made the exhibit engaging and accessible. Public engagement like this not only educates but also helps shape future research by incorporating real-time feedback from the people who matter most - patients and their loved ones. 

 We’re already looking forward to next year’s festival!