[Johann Friedrich Meckel the Younger (1781-1833) and modern teratology]

Among other special topics Johann Friedrich Meckel the Younger concentrated his scientific researches on the systematic investigations of the human and animal malformations. He explored many samples which were part of his private anatomical collection. Today, the Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology possesses a number of important teratological preparations which Meckel and his graduate students minutely investigated (e.g. the individuals to the Meckel, Klippel Feil and Hanhart syndrome). The goals of our studies are to identify the samples originating from the Meckel Collections, and to reinvestigate them with modern methods. Two objects (brainless malformation, Halle I, and neural tube defect, Halle II) were analysed by comparative genomic hybridization (CGH). These results obtained are published in Toennies et al. (2002).