Established | 2000 |
---|---|
Location | Times Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, NE1 4EP |
Coordinates | 54°58′03″N1°37′14″W / 54.967500°N 1.620556°W |
Type | Science museum |
Visitors | 225,000 visitors per year (as of 2010) [1] |
Public transit access | Railway, Bus, Metro |
Nearest car park | Times Square Car Park |
Website | www |
The Centre for Life is a science village in Newcastle upon Tyne where scientists, clinicians, educationalists and business people work to promote the advancement of the life sciences. The centre is a registered charity, governed by a board of trustees, which receives no public funding.
The centre was opened by the Queen in May 2000. [2] In March 2009 the centre was the main venue for the UK's first Maker Faire, [3] run as part of the Newcastle ScienceFest. The 2010 Newcastle Maker Faire was held at the Centre for Life and the nearby Discovery Museum. Maker Faire UK returned to the Centre for Life in 2013, at which over 300 hackers, crafters, coders, DIYers and inventors presented their projects alongside installations and drop-in workshops, [4] and also in 2016. [5]
The Life Science Centre is a visitor attraction at the International Centre for Life. It has a changing programme of events made up of temporary and permanent exhibitions, a Science Theatre, a planetarium. [2]
The centre provides employment for some 600 people. [2] Partners in the Centre for Life include the NHS and Newcastle University. [6] The Experiment Zone allows visitors to try out laboratory-style experiments such as DNA extraction [7] and the Brain Zone explores how the human brain works. [8] The Wow Zone features several hands on activities, including a 'Big Machine' where guests can catapult plastic pellets up to a height of 6 metres, and a set of seats connected to pulley systems: requiring guests to pull on a wire to send them up a height. [9]
Life Science Centre has hosted major touring exhibitions such as Body Worlds Vital in 2014. [10] In the winter months, Times Square is host to an open-air ice rink. [11]
Newcastle Fertility Centre was established in 1991 at the RVI, later moving to the Centre for Life and officially opened by Professor Lord Robert Winston on 22 February 2000. [12] As well as treating infertile couples, it carries out research and development into new fertility treatments. [13]
Scientists based at The Centre for Life were the first people in Europe - and only the second in the world - to get a license for stem cell research on human embryos. The license will allow work on new treatments for conditions including diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. [14] In 2005 scientists based at the centre were the first to successfully clone a human embryo. [15]
The NHS Northern Genetics Service is part of the Institute of Genetic Medicine. The main purpose of the Northern Genetics Service is to provide comprehensive and fully integrated clinical and laboratory services to the highest of standards that can help reduce the incidence of illnesses associated with genetic disease. [16]
Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located on the River Tyne's northern bank opposite Gateshead to the south. It is the most populous settlement in the Tyneside conurbation and North East England.
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston, is a British professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter and Labour peer.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care in the United Kingdom. It is a statutory body that regulates and inspects all clinics in the United Kingdom providing in vitro fertilisation (IVF), artificial insemination and the storage of human eggs, sperm or embryos. It also regulates human embryo research.
The Freeman Hospital is an 800-bed tertiary referral centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The hospital is managed by the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is a teaching hospital for Newcastle University.
A biomedical scientist is a scientist trained in biology, particularly in the context of medical laboratory sciences or laboratory medicine. These scientists work to gain knowledge on the main principles of how the human body works and to find new ways to cure or treat disease by developing advanced diagnostic tools or new therapeutic strategies. The research of biomedical scientists is referred to as biomedical research.
Dame Anne Laura Dorinthea McLaren, was a British scientist who was a leading figure in developmental biology. She paved the way for women in science and her work helped lead to human in vitro fertilisation (IVF). She left an enduring legacy marked by her research and ethical contributions to the field. She received many honors for her contributions to science, including election as fellow of the Royal Society.
Sir John Anthony Hardy is a human geneticist and molecular biologist at the Reta Lila Weston Institute of Neurological Studies at University College London with research interests in neurological diseases.
The Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) is a 673-bed tertiary referral hospital and research centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, with strong links to Newcastle University. The hospital is part of the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is a designated academic health science centre.
Bourn Hall Clinic in Bourn, Cambridgeshire, England, is a centre for the treatment of infertility. The original building, Bourn Hall, is about 400 years old. Since becoming a medical centre, it has been greatly extended.
The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation is a British cancer research charity which raises money to fund the early detection and treatment of cancer, and clinical trials of anti-cancer drugs. Based in the North East of England, the Foundation was launched on 25 March 2008 in the name of Sir Bobby Robson, himself a cancer sufferer five times since 1992, and who died of the disease on 31 July 2009.
Newcastle ScienceFest is a 10-day event at venues across NewcastleGateshead, with the principal aim of increasing the North East's enthusiasm for science and encouraging young people to consider a career in this area.
Mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT), sometimes called mitochondrial donation, is the replacement of mitochondria in one or more cells to prevent or ameliorate disease. MRT originated as a special form of in vitro fertilisation in which some or all of the future baby's mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) comes from a third party. This technique is used in cases when mothers carry genes for mitochondrial diseases. The therapy is approved for use in the United Kingdom. A second application is to use autologous mitochondria to replace mitochondria in damaged tissue to restore the tissue to a functional state. This has been used in clinical research in the United States to treat cardiac-compromised newborns.
Professor Sir John Burn is a British professor of Clinical Genetics at Newcastle University and senior leader in England's National Health Service.
Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of the Shelford Group of University Teaching Hospitals and an NHS Foundation Trust. It provides acute medical services in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, at Royal Victoria Infirmary and Freeman Hospital, the Campus for Ageing and Vitality, Newcastle Dental Hospital, Newcastle Fertility Centre and the Northern Genetics Service. The Great North Children's Hospital also is part of the trust and is located linked with RVI on the same site.
The Great North Children's Hospital (GNCH) is a tertiary referral centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The hospital is managed by the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is a teaching hospital for the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is one of only 14 such children's hospitals in the United Kingdom.
Michael G Hanna is Director of the UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London and professor in clinical neurology and consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London, and also Director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Neuromuscular Disease.
Sir Douglass Matthew Turnbull is Professor of Neurology at Newcastle University, an Honorary Consultant Neurologist at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and a director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research.
Joyce Harper is Professor of Reproductive Science at the Institute for Women's Health, University College London where she heads the Reproductive Science and Society group. She is director of the Embryology and PGD Academy and Global Women Connected.
Sanderson Hospital was an orthopaedic hospital for children and an elderly care facility used by the NHS in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
Professor Patrick Francis Chinnery, FRCP, FRCPath, FMedSci, is a neurologist, clinician scientist, and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow based in the Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit and the University of Cambridge, where he is also professor of neurology and head of the department of clinical neurosciences.