Room: HT109
Contact person: Jiří Synek
The laboratory is equipped with Biodur plastination equipment. Plastination was patented in 1977 by the anatomist Gunther von Hagens. It is still relatively unique equipment, of which there are only a few examples in the Czech Republic. The equipment was developed primarily for teaching medical students, but its use is much wider.
It is possible to use it to preserve the soft tissues of higher vertebrates without storing them in fixation solutions whilst preserving all the details and, simultaneously, with minimal maintenance costs. In addition, it is possible to plastinize practically all vertebrates and invertebrates (including their developmental stages) with the preservation of morphology and anatomy, as well as plants and their parts, or, for example, mushrooms.
The whole principle of the equipment consists of completely drying the sample and replacing its cellular and intercellular water with plastination silicone. Since a large amount of acetone is used here, the equipment is divided into two parts – the technical room and the plastination room itself. The technical room houses cooling units for the freezing chambers, a vacuum pump and a pump for the curing chamber.
In the plastination room there is a freezing chamber (-20 °C) for drying samples in acetone, a freezing chamber (-20 °C) with a vacuum chamber for forced impregnation with silicone and a curing chamber for the final treatment of samples.
Although the entire plastination process can take several months, there is practically no animal or part of one that cannot be plastinated while maintaining weight, shape, colour and, for example, the possibility of a subsequent CT scan.
