NEW ORLEANS – St. Mary’s Dominican High School in New Orleans became the first high school in the nation to begin using the SynDaver Synthetic Human Surgical Model this week.

The SynDaver Surgical Model is an elaborate and sophisticated full-body surgical simulator. The model is a 3-D jigsaw body puzzle with every muscle, bone, vascular component and organs removable and replaceable. It is programmable to simulate the circulatory system and will be used in senior and junior human anatomy classes.

“Through our growth, medical schools, hospitals and the U.S. military have adopted our products for education and training purposes,” said Dr. Christopher Sakezles, president and chief technology officer of SynDaver Labs. “We’re happy to say that St. Mary’s Dominican High School is now the first high school in the nation to adopt our technology and we’re sure that their students will gain a significant advantage over their counterparts in other schools.”

“We are excited to be the first high school in the nation to have the SynDaver Surgical Model which several medical schools use as part of their curriculum,” said Matthew Foss, Science Department Chair at Dominican. “It will allow our faculty to teach scale of the muscles, organs, and bones during their Human Anatomy classes. This is a complement to the classroom experience for our students. Thanks to the generosity of a benefactor, this addition was possible.”

The SynDaver is 66 inches tall and weighs 105 pounds (with the synthetic skin). When not in the classroom, it will reside in a 70”x 26” display storage tank. This wet storage keeps the gel of the muscles hydrated and provides an anti-microbial environment.

Since 1860, St. Mary’s Dominican High School has been a leader of Catholic education in the New Orleans region. The school’s 155-year legacy is rooted in the tradition of prayer, study, community and service. These are the pillars of Dominican life and form the foundation for the Dominican student’s experience.

SynDaver Labs was founded in 2004 to commercialize a novel system of synthetic human body parts for the medical device industry. These sophisticated models replicate human anatomy in great detail, including individual muscles, tendons, veins, arteries, nerves and organs, all made from complex composites that mimic the properties of discrete living tissues. Made from water, fibers, and salts, each of these tissues have been validated for mechanical, chemical, thermal, and dielectric properties against the relevant living tissue.

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