SCOTT ECHOLS: We really don't know that much
about the anatomy of a lot of these animals.
However, we've never had a way to visualize it
like we can now.
And each scan that we performed is a whole new treasure trove
of data.
We can literally see every blood vessel in the body.
It's like, wow, this is--
I've never seen this.
What is that?
I don't know.
And they say that beauty is only skin deep, you know,
we go below that.
My name is Scott Echols.
I'm a veterinarian, and I research finding new ways
to view and visualize anatomy.
As a surgeon, I have in my own mind
an idea of where things are.
But I want to take it to a new level
and say, let's design imaging technology that
allows us to see things we've never been able to see before.
What we currently have a lot of times
are sketches and drawings.
So you take something in three dimensional space
and you put it on a piece of paper,
it does not represent tissue or that organ system--
in this case, the cardiovascular system.
I wanted to be able to see the capillaries, the littlest guys,
up to the biggest arteries, and I
want to be able to capture it in three dimensions.
And then I had kind of an epiphany moment.
I'm going to make something that I can get much better results
with, and that's ultimately what led
to the development of BriteVu I made it in my kitchen,
to be honest.
BriteVu is a compound that we inject into blood vessels.
And because of the density of the compound,
we can see it on CT where we can comprise these multiple x-rays
into a three dimensional video or image of that animal
that we're studying.
At this time we can't use BriteVu in live animals.
As a veterinarian, the last thing I want to do
is to euthanize an animal.
However, it has been agreed upon by the owner and the attending
veterinarian that euthanasia is the best course
for this particular animal.
SHANE RICHINS: Breaks my heart to have him come in today.
I know he's at that point where his quality of life
is low enough.
But if we can make it better for the future,
maybe another lizard can live a little longer,
maybe they can have a better quality of life.
This is a way that he can keep contributing.
SCOTT ECHOLS: The tragedy is when that information is lost,
and we never get a chance to learn about that animal.
So what we have to do is put the animals under anesthesia,
and we make sure that they don't feel anything.
And we flush the blood out, usually
with a saline type solution.
And then once the blood is flushed out,
we then put the prepared BriteVu into the vascular system.
And once we've completed the perfusion,
we will then submerge the animal in ice water.
What this does is as the animal cools and the body cools,
the BriteVu solidifies.
Sort of forms a cast within the vasculature.
And then once it's solidified, we're
ready to take a CT, or an x-ray, or we can actually
harvest specific organs and we can scan them at a later time.
The species are highly variable.
We've done pigeons, we've done chickens, ducks, snakes--
a Mojave rattlesnake, ball python,
everything from small geckos up to giant tegus,
and we've been able to show it in small animals
that we just think that they're too small to get the blood
supply on.
Hummingbirds, all sorts of different rodent species
especially.
And we have in the works to do other mammals.
And of course, we've done humans, as well.
We work with researchers who are really interested in very
specific portions.
Maybe they want to understand the brain tissue.
Some people want to understand cardiovascular or heart
diseases and tissue.
Some people want to look at a joint, or the blood supply
to skin areas.
And we can also look at it in terms of studying diseases.
Think of tuberculosis.
Maybe we can understand how to improve the blood supply
to deliver drugs to that area.
Maybe someone wants to understand how a tumor grows.
We find things we never knew existed
that were right in front of us all this time.
I want it to be something that people say,
wow, we can now see things we never understood and we could
actually use that information for good,
and we can apply it to so many different studies.
We can take those animals and we can bring them back to life.
They still have a lot more to tell us.
Let's make the most of that information.