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NEWCASTLE'S LIFE SCIENCE CENTRE TOUCHES OUR LIVES IN MANY WAYS - AND ITS BOSS SAYS AS TECHNOLOGY MOVES EVER-FASTER, ITS ROLE WILL BE CRITICAL 02:20, 01 Jun 2025 As Newcastle's

groundbreaking Centre for Life marks its 25th birthday, its boss has spoken of the "critical job" it must play in the next 25 years and beyond. The centre's chief executive -

Linda Conlon - was part of the team which brought it to its Times Square home, and she's as passionate as ever about science's role in our lives. The Centre for Life held a special

birthday event last week and has also unveiled a dramatic new exhibition called Lightbox, along with a second exhibition which highlights exactly how Life has touched lives in the North

East and beyond over a quarter of a century. That is the result of a special call for the public to speak up about, whether through visiting the museum, dancing at Digital, or receiving

pioneering NHS care, their lives had been changed by the centre. Linda - who has been made an MBE for her efforts at the helm - told ChronicleLive how special a time it has been. She said:

"It's been a while in the planning, 25 years! One of things we did - which proved to be a tremendous success - was putting out a call asking people to tell us how their life has

been affected by the Centre for Life. We've had some fantastic responses from all over the city - and the country. "Children who've visited as children and now bring their own

children, people who started their careers here and have gone on to amazing things. There's the incredible number of people whose lives have been impacted by fertility treatment - and

people who have had diagnoses at the NHS clinic, there are people saying the Centre for Life saved their lives. It's been an incredibly heartwarming time." Along with the museum

that many will remember from childhood, the Centre for Life is also home to incredible scientific research and pioneering patient care. Whether you need counselling for illnesses caused by

your genetics, or are in need of NHS help to start a family, there are life-changing services on the same patch of land. Many others will have danced the night away in the Digital nightclub.

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continues below Looking back, Linda said she still vividly remembered the work to get the Centre established. She said: "The passage of time can be funny, can't it? Sometimes it

feels like yesterday [that we were opening], and sometimes it feels like a million years ago. "When you focus on the 25th birthday it brings all sorts of things back. I always remember

the front page of the Chroncicle in the 90s - when the site was being excavated. "We knew the site was the former home of Newcastle's first hospital for infectious diseases. I

remember the front page which had in red about the '1,000 bodies' under our feet. That was quite macabre. Many of those poor souls had just been buried in shrouds." Of course,

over 25 years many important people - not least Queen Elizabeth II who opened the Life Centre in 2000 - have visited while a huge amount has changed around the world. Linda reflected:

"Over the 25 years, one of the big things that sticks in the mind is how I had the pleasure of taking Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth around the centre for around 20 minutes. We have had

many important people visit over the years. "And what I think has changed is the pace of development in science. Technology is just moving on faster and faster. We can see that in

genetics. When the centre opened the human genome had not long been discovered and it had taken years and years to do it. Now you can analyse a genome in a day." Linda remains at the

forefront of advocating for science education, and she said this had never been more important. Citing technological change from artificial intelligence to social media, she added: "Now

things move on much, much faster and it can be very, very hard for a lay person to understand. "That's why I think at Life we have a really critical job in helping people make

sense of it all. Whether you love science or not, whether you have a career in it or not, your live is certainly being shaped by science. A big change we have seen is social media. It's

good in the sense that it can disseminate information so quickly, that's powerful. "But it can also be unhelpful in that much information shared can be inaccurate, and shared to

millions. Helping people - especially young people - to be able to assess what's accurate, to value the scientific method, is something we try to do. It is so exciting - but because

science and technology is moving so fast, we have to move fast with it." Article continues below Helping youngsters to fall in love with science is something that's been core to

the Life Centre's being since its foundation. Thousands of people around the region and beyond will have visited on school trips - and this sort of work remains essential. Linda said:

"One thing I think has stayed the same [over 25 years] is what I would call the child-like curiosity we see in science. I still see that now, it's a powerful experience. We want to

keep that alive, to keep igniting that spark."