CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Donating one's body to science -- it was a request of former West Virginia Gov. Cecil Underwood who died last week.

The Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University accepted Underwood's body as part of the human gift registry program.

It's a program available in all three medical schools in the state, representing a lasting gift that helps the doctors of tomorrow treat and cure the living.

Underwood's late wife, Hovah, also donated her body to science. The Underwoods have requested markers be placed in Tyler and Calhoun counties with the inscription: "They gave their lives to service and their bodies at death to science."

It's not just at Marshall University where future doctors of tomorrow
can benefit from your donation. West Virginia University and the Osteopathic School in Lewisburg also take donations.

For more about this story, including comments from medical students, click on the video link above.