As a company that aims to help and train human and animal practitioners, IMAIOS forges partnerships with other entities.
In this article we'll take a closer look at one veterinary partnership in particular, the well-known ZooParc de Beauval, more specifically the Beauval Nature zoo association.
IMAIOS and Beauval Nature are developing a highly ambitious project on a European and worldwide level. The aim: share an imaging and hematology exam database of wild animal species.
Sharing scientific data
Sharing scientific data is very important in the zoo world, and even at register level, some software is shared.
"We're trying to encourage collaboration, I'm part of a number of working groups to encourage zoos to share as much data and information as possible, particularly in the medical field and, by extension, in radiology and hematology" says Baptiste Mulot, a key figure in the ZooParc de Beauval's Animal Health & Research Department.
But all this has to be organized and backed by a technological tool.
Choosing to work with IMAIOS
"I met Denis and Antoine at a conference, and they wanted to work with me to develop vet-Anatomy with pet scans and X-rays, while I was building a hematology database. In fact, I responded favorably to their request, because I saw the skeleton of e-Anatomy and could transpose it completely for my hematology part, so that was the meeting point, the starting point for zoo-Paedia".
In fact, hematology is important, because each species will have different or slightly different white cells. In fact, it's quite complicated when you're not familiar with the species, to know whether the white cells you see are normal white cells for that species, or abnormal white cells; not least because they may look like normal cells to other species.
Then Antoine and Denis thought it would be a good idea to add imaging, which remains IMAIOS' core business. And as luck would have it, this coincided with the move to the new Beauval clinic, which is the only zoo in Europe equipped with a CT scanner.
"So we can easily scan animals, and when we need to do a piece of lung, we seize the opportunity to do the entire body. It's a bit more radiation, but it's useful for all the other animals that could potentially be scanned one day" says Baptiste Mulot.
As you can see, the zoo-Paedia platform currently comprises 2 channels: zoo-Hematology for hematology and zoo-Radiology for imaging exams.
The aim is to enrich it with histology, cytology, parasitology, etc. to make it a reference veterinary database for wild animals.
Who will use this veterinary database?
In practical terms, there will be several users. First of all, zoo veterinarians, who will play the role of prescriber: a zoo veterinarian who wants to diagnose his or her animal and have a blood test, an X-ray or an ultrasound performed.
As a result, the end-users will be internal medicine specialists to analyze the hematology and veterinary radiologists to interpret the imaging part.
zoo-Paedia will serve as a reference for normal anatomy, helping specialists in their diagnosis.
"Ideally, the idea is to do all the work that has been done on humans and is currently being done on dogs and cats, i.e. to have anatomical plates alongside the X-rays and scans to explain what the structure is, the name of the structure with labels for each species of wild animal. Obviously, this represents months and months of work for each species. This is the work that was done for hematology. The students took photos of white blood cells (neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, etc.) of at least 10 individuals of the same species, looked to see if there were any similarities and then selected an image that they felt was the most representative, with a descriptive text behind it (there are no standards.)" explains Baptiste Mulot.
This online platform will enable the community of veterinary health professionals to consult and share quality information on wild animals, and serve as a reference at European and global level.
We're really looking forward to developing this challenging project!
