SINGAPORE: The Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) new medical school will be pioneering the use of plastinated bodies for medical education in Singapore.

They are real human bodies donated to science, and preserved using a method called plastination.

In these models, water and fat are replaced with certain plastics to produce specimens that can be touched and do not smell or decay.

The bodies are from Germany, and will be used to teach anatomy at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, which has been jointly set up by Imperial College London and NTU.

The school will no longer need to rely on traditionally-preserved cadavers, which are in short supply.

Assistant Professor Dinesh Srinivasan of Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine said: "(Plastinated bodies) can be used to demonstrate difficult structures and dissection areas in high definition, such as the blood vessels in the brain or the nerves in the spine. And there is no need for special chemicals, unlike traditional cadavers."

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NTU's new medical school to pioneer use of plastinated bodies