WELLCOME COLLECTION SECURES VON HAGENS BODY SLICE
Only example of controversial anatomist's work to be on permanent display in the UK

25 June 2007: Wellcome Collection will be the first institution in the UK to display an example of Gunther Von Hagens's pioneering plastination procedure on a permanent basis. The late arrival to Wellcome Collection is a plastinated slice of a human body which has been frontally dissected. It will join a number of modern artworks relating to health and wellbeing housed in the Collection's permanent gallery, Medicine Now.

The plastination process, a method of preserving the body to enable close study of anatomy, was invented by Von Hagens in 1977.

Body Worlds, one of the world's most popular yet most controversial exhibitions of over 200 plastinated bodies and organs by Von Hagens, has been travelling the world since 1995 and has attracted 20 million visitors worldwide. 850,000 visitors saw the exhibition in London between March 2002 and February 2003.

Wellcome Collection, opened on June 21, is a world first. It combines three contemporary galleries together with the world-famous Wellcome Library, public events forum, café, bookshop, conference centre and members' club, to provide visitors with radical insight into the human condition.

Wellcome Collection builds on the vision, legacy and personal collection of Wellcome Trust founder Sir Henry Wellcome, and is part of the Trust's mission to foster understanding and promote research to improve human and animal health. Admission is free.


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Tours: From July 14 there will be a 30 minute exhibition tour every Saturday at 14.30. Full details about these and numerous other tours are available from http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/index.asp

Public information contact details:
Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE
T +44 (0)20 7611 2222
E info@wellcomecollection.org
www.wellcomecollection.org


Press information and images

Wellcome Collection: Kallaway Media Centre and press images: www.kallaway.co.uk/wellcome.htm

Press contacts
William Kallaway
T +44 (0)20 7221 7883
E william@kallaway.co.uk


Wellcome Trust
Media centre: www.wellcome.ac.uk/aboutus/mediaoffice/


Press contacts

Katrina Nevin-Ridley
T +44 (0)20 7611 8540/ 07973 481485
E k.nevin-ridley@wellcome.ac.uk

About the Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK and the second largest medical research charity in the world. It funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending around £500 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas. The Wellcome Trust supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact on health and wellbeing.


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