Harker recently became the first high school in the world to acquire an advanced 3-D touch-interactive virtual cadaver dissection table.

The table is to be used primarily by the Human Anatomy and Physiology (HAPY) classes, but is also open to Biology students to view real dissections of preserved human and animal specimens.

“The main goal of this is to enhance the course and make the learning easier,” Science Department chair Anita Chetty said. “My whole philosophy about education is to have real life experiences. I am always looking for ways to make us more cutting edge.”

Using touch screen technology, digital cadavers can be rotated, deskinned, and dissected in any direction among other features. The human cadavers are donated bodies that have been frozen, dissected, and then scanned using CT imaging. The images are then loaded into the machine to allow students to virtually dissect the bodies. The software has three preloaded human cadavers, conjoined twins, and various animal cadavers such as a turtle, mouse, and cat, all life-size and anatomically accurate. Graphic artists then add in a face and features that may have been altered during the freezing process, such as blood vessels.

Two years ago, Chetty first saw the virtual dissection table at Stanford Medical school. She invited Anatomage, the Bay Area based company that manufactures the tables, to the 2012 Science Research Symposium, where the technology drew the attention of Harker administrators Joe Rosenthal and Butch Keller, head of the Upper school.

Keller, a biology major in college, shared his excitement about the table.

“When I first saw that exhibited at the symposium a couple years ago, I didn’t literally run, but I went directly to Ms. Chetty and said how do we get this,” Keller said. “I really think it’s the coolest thing ever.”

The $60,000 product was funded by six parent donations. Chetty expressed gratitude for their contributions.

“Many of the parents who donated are in computer science and technology fields, and they really committed to advancing our program to another level,” she said. “The parents that donated money opened the eyes of the community to the possibilities [that] Computer Science has in application along with biology. I am so grateful to those parents.”

The concept for the table was initially developed at the Stanford Anatomy Lab, and Harker has the most up-to-date version of the technology. Anatomage incorporates a software that can convert 2-D images into 3 dimensions known as Invivo 5. The touch-screen table runs on a Windows operating system with a split screen that allows teachers to display half the cadaver one on side, and a powerpoint on the other. All the cadavers can be labeled, unlabeled, and annotated in any way for class activities or quizzes.

Human Anatomy and Physiology student Ashir Bansal (12) looks forward to using the new table.

“I think it’s a privilege like no other, we get to experience dissection on a level above that of the human cadaver,” Ashir said. “The digitization of the body of a real person allows us to review anatomy in a way that typically only medical school students can.”

The table is housed in a small specialized Human Anatomy classroom on the second floor of Nichols.