You’d be hard-pressed to find somebody that hasn’t once dreamt of becoming a rock star.  Luckily, becoming one doesn’t require a drug habit or smashing good looks.

Scientists are breaking rules and pushing limits much similar to the way that Gene Simmons and the gang did back in the 70s, but replacing the face paint with goggles and the microphone with a microscope.  One of these scientists is Gunther von Hagens, an anatomist, inventor of plastination and developer of Body Worlds.

Von Hagens was born in 1945 in Poland, which was then a part of Germany.  Russia was closing in on his homeland at the time, forcing his parents to pack up five-day-old Gunther in a laundry basket and set west to Greiz, a small town in eastern Germany.

Growing up, von Hagens was diagnosed with a rare bleeding disorder that hospitalized him for much of his childhood.  Von Hagens’ constant surroundings of doctors and medicine are what fueled his desire to become a physician himself; the hospital was also responsible for creating his feelings of alienation and uniqueness.

Fast forward to 1965.  Von Hagens was attending medical school at the University of Jena.  Here, professors noted his ambition and unorthodox personality.  Luckily, his unusual behavior usually ended up benefiting the entire class, opening their minds to ideas that allowed critical self-evaluation.

Outside of the classroom, von Hagens immersed himself in politics, questioning Communism and Socialism.  He attempted to break for freedom from East Germany into Austria but was caught, arrested and imprisoned for two years as a young 23-year-old.  Later, though, von Hagens recalled this time as being a positive one, stating, “All that I learned in prison helped me later in life as a scientist.”

After his release, von Hagens completed medical school and began working as an anesthesiologist at Heidelberg University.  It wasn’t for him, and he soon began working as a lecturer, which led to the invention of plastination – a technique for preserving tissue, specifically anatomical cells.  The process works by pushing plastic into the cells rather than surrounding them, allowing the plastic to be picked up and held.  Decomposition of the specimen must be stopped first; then, it is treated with heat, light and gas.  The final product is a rigid permanence of the specimen that is odorless and immune to decay.

What von Hagens did with this technique was unprecedented: He started Body Worlds in 1995.  The traveling exhibit has been viewed by over 34 million people across three continents. It showcases preserved human bodies posed so that inner anatomical structures are visible.

This technique has raised controversy and resistance, with many believing that the displaying of dead bodies as art is irreverent to the human body.  Von Hagens has responded to this accusation by bringing up the fact that all of us will end with a similar fate; his intentions are to push his viewers toward seeing this truth.

Regardless of one’s beliefs, the final products that von Hagens and his team create are a sight to see.  Bodies that are have undergone plastination are not arranged in standard positions.  Bodies are situated in positions that enhance the role of certain internal systems.  A baseball player’s abdominal cavity is opened to reveal the tense contracted muscles while another is specialized to show all the blood veins running throughout.  There is even a showcase that compares the organs of smokers and non-smokers, as well as those who are obese and those who are of normal weight.

To do all this requires about 1,500 hours of work in order to complete just one body.  There are about 340 employees constantly working on creations for Body Worlds and all displays are authentic, meaning the bodies were donated willingly.  Von Hagens’ best friend even signed up to be part of the show.

Controversial, rule-breaking, inventive attitudes are required to rock.  Both Gene and Gunther had them all.