INTRODUCTIONThe National Board of Medical Education considers the musculoskeletal system to be amongst the three most crucial subjects within an anatomy curriculum, therefore the necessary tools are required to properly instruct students on the subject. Common teaching methods include using bones and dissections to show the origins and insertions of muscles and their related neurovascular bundles, but given the complexity of these structures, some students are not able to visualize important details. Additionally, Universidad Central del Caribe has recently struggled to obtain enough specimens due to increases in student acceptances as well as declines in the supply of bodies to our board of donations. This potentially poses a paucity of bodies for upcoming classes. This study proposes a method that could allow our medical school not only to preserve structures that would otherwise be discarded, but also to broaden their functionality as a tool for learning gross anatomy.METHODSThe specimens used in this procedure had been previously used to teach dissection‐based anatomy and were in a fragile state that required their preservation in an embalming solution of formaldehyde, phenolic acid, glycerin, and water. These were rinsed and submerged in a solution of Sodium Hypochlorite (NaClO) to soften the tissues. Over the course of 6 weeks, the cadavers were monitored and dissected, either isolating those structures that make up the articulations or the tendons of muscles, depending on the tissues desired to be preserved. Once the desired structures were obtained, these were placed in a bleaching fluid to improve their appearance and then submerged in a preservative fluid preventing further decay.RESULTSThe approach we took for dealing with the structures proved to be successful. By removing most of the tissues that were susceptible to NaClO, we were able to isolate tendons from their muscles and expose the articulations that through normal dissecting methods would be hard to observe.CONCLUSIONThis approach provides a potential means for medical institutions to lengthen the use of aged cadavers and proposes an alternate method to enhance the study of hard to observe anatomical structures that are oftentimes concealed by an abundance of blood vessels, nerves and muscle tissue. The effectiveness of this method in studying anatomy have yet to be compared to traditional methods of cadaveric studies. However, it provides a simple alternative that is reliable for medical schools facing a cadaver shortage.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.