The Power of Difference in Cancer Research: From People to Cells
From shifting cancer cells to shifting perspectives in science, this interview connects identity and research.
Dr. Chris Bakal is professor of cancer morphodynamics at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), where he studies one of cancer’s most dynamic features: its ability to change shape.
His research focuses on the biological “switches” that allow cells to adapt, move, and spread throughout the body. By combining cell biology with advanced imaging and computational approaches, his work aims to understand how this “shapeshifting” occurs, and how it might one day be controlled.
Bakal studied biochemistry at the University of British Columbia before completing a PhD in medical biophysics at the University of Toronto and the Ontario Cancer Institute. He then moved to Harvard Medical School for his postdoctoral research, where he developed some of the earliest AI approaches for inferring cell signaling states from live cells. Since establishing his lab at the ICR in 2009, he has pioneered imaging and computational methods to study cancer cells in 3D and over time, building models that capture how cells behave dynamically.
His research is grounded in the idea that patients are not averages. This principle has guided his efforts to develop AI tools that better reflect biological and population diversity, including addressing gaps in how data represents LGBTQIA+ patients and other underrepresented groups in biomedical research.
In this interview, we spoke to Bakal about his career journey, his research into cancer cell shapeshifting, and his experiences as an LGBTQIA+ scientist in STEMM.
Was there a particular person or
experience that motivated you to choose a career in science?
Chris Bakal, PhD (CB):
LEL:
CB:
This discovery was actually made using some of the earliest versions of AI (specifically, machine learning (ML), a subset of AI), which we were using to analyze thousands of images of melanoma cells. There were too many images for humans to go through, so we used AI/ML to identify the shape of melanoma cells. The model’s answer was round AND elongated. These are two very different things! Cells don’t exist in the quantum world; they have to be one or the other, so I theorized that any single cell switches back and forth between shapes. Constantly shapeshifting—when we followed them live, it’s in fact what we saw.
But the really cool part was that we found genes that are responsible for this shapeshifting. Meaning we don’t just have genes that give our cells and bodies their shapes—we also have genes that control the shapeshifting process. While these genes are switched on in embryos, in most normal adult cells, they are turned off. But cancer cells have found a way to switch them back on and use it to their advantage.
With this ability to shape shift, metastatic cancer cells can assume different shapes to invade/cross different tissues. For example, they can become drill-like cells to move through dense bone, round cells that travel through the blood, or forms that allow them to hide from the immune system for years.
This is very important for patients because it's typically metastatic cells that are responsible for cancer deaths. So, when cancer cells gain the ability to change shape and spread, this is often very bad for the prognosis of the patient.
My lab is trying to find ways to stop this shapeshifting from happening.
LEL:
You’re now using advanced imaging and AI to analyze subtle changes in cell shape—how are these technologies changing the way you study cancer, and what new possibilities are they opening up?
CB:
I have been developing and using ML/AI for almost my entire scientific career. For one, it helps improve the speed, accuracy, and depth with which we can analyze data, especially imaging data. Our microscopes run almost 24 hours a day, acquiring images of cancer cells. As I said before, no human can ever hope to analyze all this data manually. So, we use AI to search through these large datasets and make discoveries that would otherwise be impossible.
A very exciting new aspect is using generative AI to model and test experiments on a computer. For example, running combinations of drugs to find ones that work. I can simulate millions of experiments that no lab would ever be able to do themselves.
LEL:
CB:
Given my age and how I progressed through my career as an academic, I have found many STEMM environments to be “permissive” and accepting of the LGBTQIA+ community. I never encountered anything overt, and I feel that being gay has never hurt my progression.
But I do think that “behind the scenes,” there are still some instances when LGBTQIA+ individuals might face bias in getting a grant or a promotion. I mean, there are still a number of challenges facing women, minorities, and LGBTQIA+ people. If you look at many departments in UK STEMM they in no way reflect the diversity of the students they teach. So clearly, at some point, the door is being closed on people. It’s just in the dark.
So, I still worry that young LGBTQIA+ people are going to have a tough time getting grants and jobs in the future.
What needs to be done is to provide more clarity and transparency in the hiring and grant funding processes, which even today are very opaque, even to someone established like myself. But also make the committees and decision makers more accountable. If departments aren’t hiring women, minorities, or LGBTQIA+ people, there needs to be clear reasons why such decisions were made.
At the same time, we have to communicate to young LGBTQIA+ people that there are important roles for them in STEMM, that there is a future. STEMM shouldn’t just be tolerant—it should be supportive and encouraging.
LEL:
CB:
Definitely seeing my students learn, progress, and establish their own careers has been the most rewarding aspect of my job. It makes me want to come to work every day. I have been lucky enough to see some students progress from being interns and graduate students to postdocs, and now to running their own labs—It’s just the best! It shows that we as a lab have done a good job.
LEL:
CB:
But that said—you have to make decisions about how best to continue following your passion—not just now, but 5, 10, even 15 years down the line. Is what I am doing today going to ensure that I can still be doing this in a decade? I still ask myself that question every day.
And it goes without saying that being LGBTQIA+ is, in itself, a superpower you can bring to your work. We’ve had to be bold, creative, and independent thinkers to make our way in the world—we can bring that directly into STEMM, from thinking to experimental design and analysis.
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