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Departmental Facilities

Abbie Museum of Anatomy

Our mortuary facilities serve for the preparation of animal skeletons which are then displayed in our museum, the Abbie Museum of Anatomy. The animal skeletons on display are a result of mutually desirable cooperation between the Zoological gardens of the Royal Zoological Society of South Australia and our department. At the moment the Abbie Museum of Anatomy is in possession of a small collection of the Australian mammals. (eg. koala cadavaric material, possum and wombat skulls) One long term plan is to rebuild a good comparative anatomy skeletal collection especially of primates and Australian fauna.

For more information on Abbie Museum of Anatomy e-mail: Rachel Norris

The departmental mortuary is the only fully equipped and fully operational facility receiving, embalming and storing cadavers for anatomical dissections in the State of South Australia. Our mortuary supplies cadaveric material to the other two universities in the State. With the recent move away from teaching anatomy by dissection of the entire body, the mortuary has prepared and accumulated a substantial collection of prosected specimens. These are used not only by students in major courses of anatomy, but are offered for study and examination purposes to professional organisations, surgeons and other specialists. The prosected specimens are also used to demonstrate anatomy in vocational courses (e.g. beauticians). With the preparation for plastination of anatomical specimens under way our mortuary will soon be on a par with the most modern facilities elsewhere in the world.

The department also conducts filed work in forensic anthropology using experimental cemetary facilities.

The dissecting hall is named after a distinguished teacher of anatomy Professor Raymond Last. It plays a pivotal role in the teaching programme of the Department of Anatomical Sciences. In addition, it is part of the important contribution the department makes to the South Australian community. Many research projects, both by staff and postgraduate students in the Department of Anatomical Sciences and other University departments use the cadaveric material. The dissecting hall of the Department of Anatomical Sciences is the major anatomy teaching/research facility in the state. It is the location of the only licence to prepare bodies for teaching/research in the state. Flinders University Medical School and University of South Australia courses depend on our department's facility for their anatomy teaching.

For more information about the morturary and dissecting hall e-mail: Wesley Fisk or Stelios Michas

Electron Microscopy Laboratory

The Electron Microscopy lab is a preparation laboratory for both electon microscopic (EM) and some light microscopic (LM) techniques. These include the preparation of tissue for Scanning EM, Transmission EM, Freeze Fracture EM, Immuno EM and LM, resin LM sections and Fluorescence microscopy. In this laboratory routine specimen preparations for TEM (resin embedded) and SEM, including critical point drying, are carried out. In addition special techniques such as immunoelectron microscopy, colloidal gold labelling and freeze fracture are being performed.

The laboratory is used to teach undergraduate students, honours and postgraduate students to carry out their projects.

Equipment housed in this space includes amongst others: ultramicrotomes, dissecting microscopes, microscope and camera, fume hood and oven, embedding oven, centrifuge, water filter, knifemaker for the ultramicrotome, vibratome and critical point dryer.

For more information e-mail: Chris Leigh

Histology Laboratory

This is a large laboratory used for both teaching and research. It has facilities for both chemical and cryofixing of tissues, paraffin embedding and sectioning, cryostat sectioning and staining for both routine as well as special techniques for light microscopy including immunocytochemistry and histochemistry.

In this lab teaching material is prepared for use in undergraduate teaching. here we produce and distribute collections of microscope slides and histology

for use in undergraduate teaching. Here we produce, maintain and distribute collections of microscope slides.

Major equipment in the Histology lab includes, two rotary microtomes, tissue processor, embedding station, freeze drier and cryostat. The department has eight research bright field microscopes (three of these have camera attachments) and a fluorescence, phase, inverted and Nomarski microscope, an automatic tissueprocessor and embedding unit, two microtomes and water baths, several staining sets, two fume hoods, a vacuum oven and slide oven, a cryostat, a fridge and a freezer, two island benches, five sinks, and a laminar flow cabinet.

For more information e-mail: Gail Hermanis or Nadia Gagliardi

Tissue Culture Laboratory

Digital Imaging and photographic Suite

This room is used in a research role as well as in the following teaching roles:-

• It is used by general staff to scan in prints and negatives, digital annotation of images, print copies, copy illustrations, in order to produce teaching posters and teaching projection slides.
• It is used by third year science and Honours students to photograph anatomical specimens, scan in prints, digital annotation of images, print copies, in their thesis and project work.
• It is used by Postgraduate students for all of the above functions, and, to produce publication-quality illustrations.

For more information e-mail: Tavik Morgenstern