St. Louis, MO (KMOX) - A groundbreaking St. Louis company is reanimating dead bodies, so medical professionals can get more realistic practice. MaxFi Surgical Simulations uses a proprietary process to restore a cadaver's vascular system.
"We're able to simulate, for physicians and medical device companies, as though they were working on a live human," explains CEO Bob Mills. A special pumping system helps blood once again course through their veins. It gives medical professional the ability to train on bodies donated to science.
The pumping system brings the blood up to the temperature of a living human, which means the cadaver looks and feels more life-like. "What our clients want is a real, bleeding cadaver," explains Yuriy Snyder, MaxFi's Director of R&D and Engineering. "If they make a mistake, they want to see the bleeding. They also want to overcome the difficulties that actually come with having a circulatory system."
MaxFi can offer a variety of blood products -- some real (often Bovine), some synthetic -- that either clot or don't clot based on the client's needs.
Who are clients? Researchers, universities, surgeons, device makers, and military medics. Donated bodies can be used several times, depending on what part of the body is needed. MaxFi has even found a way to isolate one very important organ. "One of our technologies, we call it a heart in a box, and it's an actual human heart that beats in a box," says Mills. Snyder adds it's easier then for surgeons or device makers to access and view all areas of the heart from access ports. "They're able to deploy stents, heart valves, pumps, whatever they want to do inside of that heart and visualize it on the screen."
The facility includes a classroom, dressing rooms, and a massive lab that can host multiple procedures at once. Those procedures can be recorded or streamed live via 4k cameras mounted in the ceiling.
MaxFi works with local cremation and funeral groups to obtain donated bodies. Mills says they offer families tours of the facility, so they can be assured their loved one's remains are treated with respect.
He also points out, the central facility is more cost effective for researchers and practitioners, because each institution isn't on the hook for their own lab. It also reduces the need for animals for research and surgical practice.
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