Gunther Von Hagens

Gunther von Hagens is the inventor of the plastination technique and creator of the BODY WORLDS and BODY WORLDS 2 exhibitions.

In 1965, he began his medical studies at the University of Jena. Von Hagens spent two years as a political prisoner in East Germany after distributing leaflets protesting against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops and an unsuccessful attempt at escaping East Germany.

In 1970, the West German government bought his freedom for US $20,000, enabling von Hagens to complete his medical studies at the University of Lubeck in 1973. He then moved to the University of Heidelberg, where he finalized his doctoral thesis as a resident in the Department of Anaesthetics and Emergency Medicine in 1975.

In 1977, von Hagens invented plastination as a groundbreaking technology of preserving anatomical specimens with reactive polymers. At the same time, von Hagens started BIODUR Products, which has since marketed special polymers and equipment for plastination.

In 1993, he founded the Heidelberg-based Institute for Plastination, with the aim of offering plastination specimens for educational use, and to create the BODY WORLDS exhibition, which opened in Japan in 1995. In 1996, von Hagens accepted a Visiting Professorship at Dalian Medical University in the State Medical Academy in Bishkek/Kyrgyzstan, and founded the von Hagens Dalian Plastination Ltd. in 2001.

In 2004, Dr. von Hagens began a visiting professorship at the New York University College of Dentistry, and is in the process of designing the first curriculum in the United States that will use plastination specimens in lieu of dissection. He is currently touring his BODY WORLDS 2 collection the world over.