When we were asked for zombie eyes…

Zombies can be recreated easily enough for the big screen with special effects and cosmetics. So what role, if any, does the humble autoclave play in this? Ashley Rogers from Cantor + Nissel unravels the mystery…

Cantor + Nissel is a European independent contact lens manufacturing company, founded in 1964. They specialise in hand-painted lenses for patients who have scarring, no iris, double vision, divergency or similar defects of one eye and require a lens to match their good eye.

But it’s not all about eye defects – film and TV is also a big market. “They come to us with all sorts of designs, lenses to age the eyes, dead eyes, bloodshot eyes – any design that is asked for, we can and will do,” says Teresa Cataldo, Manager of our Custom Hand Paint. “We’ve done lots of lenses for TV including Cillian Murphy in Peaky Blinders, Josh Harnett and Rory Kinnear in Penny Dreadful and the White Walkers in Game of Thrones. We’ve even made animatronic eyes.” But even Teresa was taken aback when we was asked to make zombie eyes. “Never having met any zombies, I really didn’t know what their eyes were like”, she laughs. However, some quick research produced the blank, dead-looking eyes now so familiar on our TV screens. And there was a spin-off: Halloween. “Lots of people want to dress up as the undead for Halloween parties and these contact lenses are just the thing!” Of course, although the zombie contact lenses are mainly for fun, they still need to meet eye care safety standards which apply to prescription contact lenses. This is where autoclaving comes in.

Why autoclaves?

The factory produces hundreds of contact lenses every day, often on a 24 hour turn around. Each lens is submersed in saline solution, before being packaged in a vial which is capped and crimp sealed. The vials are steam sterilised to guarantee a three year shelf life as long as the seal is not broken. For this critical step, four Astell AMB230BT 43 litre, front loading, benchtop autoclaves are used. To increase production, additional capacity was needed and it was decided that the two oldest autoclaves be placed with two new larger AMB240 63 litre models – giving a 25% overall increase in capacity.

The autoclaves are in almost constant operation, so reliability is of paramount importance. “In our experience, Astell autoclaves are by far the most consistent on the market”, says Garth Barnard, MD at Cantor + Nissel. “They are especially well built and Astell has very well trained engineers to carry out breakdown and service visits. Rapid cycle times are important, but so is flexibility. The latest version of Astell’s software allows us to create our own cycle parameters so that we can run different cycles depending on the products being sterilised.”

Ashley Rogers is an Engineering Manager at Cantor + Nissel.