SynDaver

SynDaver Labs is a medical simulation company that designs and builds experimentally-validated synthetic human tissues, body parts and human bodies for the purposes of medical education. Through the provision of these products to healthcare simulation and educational programs, SynDaver Labs has developed an extensive catalog of synthetic tissues based on a database of tissue properties in humans and animals. This database has been curated over a span of time and is extremely detailed.

SynDaver is a company based in Tampa, Florida which was founded in 2004 to commercialize a novel system of synthetic human body parts for the medical device industry, as well as for academic purposes. SynDaver’s products have served as a means of replication of human anatomy in great detail, and therefore have provided learners across the globe have an alternative means of clinical experience prior to or alongside other clinical patient experiences.

As with many clinical simulation products, this gives learners the ability to practice without the possibility of the creation of harm to a real patient. As the SynDaver patient simulators are made from materials that mimic live tissue, they have been used across a wide range of industries. Industry uses for SynDaver have included medical device testing and surgical education in high fidelity simulation environments. This has been in addition to other uses such as consumer product development and use in the crash test environment.

For over 20 years of business operations, SynDaver Labs has demonstrated strong growth trends in the healthcare simulation and medical education. On average, the company has grown by more than 60 percent annually. SnyDaver strongly credits an executive team who paved the way for this growth in product development and consumer demand. Dr. Christopher Sakezles remains the Founder, CEO, Chief Technology Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors for SynDaver. The company is also advised by a selected team of experts drawn from the medical device industry, as well as thought leaders in surgical simulation and medical education.

The customer base for SynDaver is broad, diverse, and global. Typical consumers include medical device manufacturers, hospitals, medical schools, and educational institutions (with EMT, nursing, anatomy, veterinary medicine, dentistry, engineering, mortuary science, surgical technician, physical therapy and sports science programs). The company even sells to middle and high-school biology programs.

SynDaver Products

SynDaver Labs products are made from a variety of materials such as water, fibers and salts. Each of the tissues produced from these materials are required to be evaluated and validated for mechanical, chemical, thermal and dielectric properties (against the relevant live tissue). The company’s extensive validation helps to ensure that all simulated muscles, tendons, veins, arteries, nerves and organs (made from complex composites) are able to accurately mimic the properties of the discrete live tissues.

These life-like products developed by SynDaver Labs have been known to be used in a variety of healthcare fields. For example, surgical education, medical device testing, consumer products evaluation and ballistics test programs have all employed the use of SynDaver Labs products.

Through the sale of these medical supplies and cast trainers, and by provision of synthetic cadavers, Syndraver is able to focus business efforts on the development of synthetic human tissues for use in medical device verification and validation tests. While the company has made significant progress in their product development, the ultimate goal of SynDaver Labs is to be able to replace live animals and human cadavers. These replacements will have vast impacts on medical education and training with synthetic analogs which are more cost-effective than the relevant animal or human model.

Through the push for these developments, SynDaver is simultaneously in the process to increase the number of tissues in the company’s library, expand the body of live tissue data upon which these materials are based and reduce the overall cost of the technology. The company also hopes to develop a family of synthetic humans which breathe, bleed and react to stimuli with autonomy – some purely synthetic and some with live cells.

SynDaver Technology

The work which has become SynDaver Labs technology first began at the University of Florida over two decades ago, in 1993. The company’s initial studies involved the manufacture of synthetic trachea models. The purpose of these models were to replace live animals in the testing of airway devices and the development of interpenetrating polymer-fiber networks to mimic lumenal structures (such as vessels). The creation of this style of patient simulator has helped make healthcare education safer and more effective.

Today, there are materials which SynDaver Labs develops that are used extensively in the industry as simple vein and artery mimics. SynDaver constantly refines technologies, seeks new markets for existing products and designs new products for emerging applications. The implication of these products continues to become more widespread as their purpose and success is demonstrated.

Back in 2017, SynDaver Labs further launched the SynDaver Canine to extend this application to the veterinary medical education community. Then, in 2018, SynDaver Labs also launched “CopyCat” (a synthetic feline designed for middle and high-school biology programs). The expansion into the veterinary patient manikin market has been incredibly beneficial for those in veterinary science.

In 2018, after beta-testing, SynDaver Labs announced a mass-market rollout of the SynDaver Advanced Modular Mannequin (SAMM), an open-sourced modular mannequin that comes with design plans and a 3D printer to allow the end-user to modify the manikin in accordance to the consumer’s own desires. There is the ability to see SynDaver’s products at the SSH IMSH conference.

With further production of advanced technologies, SynDaver has launched a third-generation (3G) version of the SynDaver Synthetic Human and has also developed newborn, preemie and pediatric versions of the synthetic human product line. These models enable surgical training in the neonatal and pediatric space in a way that is currently not possible without risk to human life.

The company has also developed military-specific versions of our surgical canine model which work well for surgical simulation programs. The standard version is permanently in use at the University of Florida, Texas A&M, the University of Saskatchewan and many other schools with clinical simulation centers.

In these educational environments where moulage is regularly used to improve simulator presentation, the versions have completely replaced the use of both live dogs and canine cadavers in surgical education programs. SynDaver Labs now seeks to expand on additional animal models such as cat, horse and rabbit. Also in development are human models that incorporate artificial intelligence to enable interaction with live humans. SynDaver products provide learners with an incredibly lifelike experience to experience anatomy, physiology and surgical simulator based education.