Stephan Arens, M.Sc., used results from his PhD thesis to illustrate a significant fact from the past to visitors of the State Museum of Detmold: A 6500 year old baby mummy, originating from South America and exhibited in the museum, was recently investigated by a medical team of the Heart and Diabetes Center of Bad Oeynhausen (under the guidance of Prof. Dr. W. Burchert) to detect the cause of its death. In a virtual autopsy they diagnosed a hypoplastic left heart for the baby.
Stephan Arens generates in his thesis expressive illustrations of individual patient’s hearts based on medical volume data. Now he delivered a 3D model of the heart of the baby to the scientific team, to be placed next to the “Detmold Baby” in the museum. The 3D print illustrates the disease clearly by the smaller left heart chamber. The Lancet, a renowned medical journal, showed interest in this work as well, an article will appear in 2015.