Setting up a plastination laboratory at the Faculty of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Barcelona

Plastination is a laboratory tool used to preserve biological tissues that has been applied to morphological studies, teaching and research. The technique reduces exposure to toxic fumes and diminishes damage to anatomical preparations during their manipulation. Contrary to intuition, the basic technique of plastination does not require any significant economical investment. The technical equipment and laboratory products can be obtained with a limited budget. Moreover, facility requirements are simple and not very expensive if only the basic technique is pursued. In the present work, we report our experience in the design and setting up of a laboratory to plastinate anatomical preparations using the S10 standard technique at the Faculty of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. We explain the different ways we used to finance this laboratory and the cost of the facility, the technical equipment and the laboratory products. We also report the first results concerning the first anatomical preparations obtained by us.