Each year, thousands of fetal animals are used in developmental and reproductive toxicology studies (DART) where fetal pathologists manually evaluate fetal skeletons for defects by eye. While this approach has been the gold standard in the DART field, it is highly subjective, tedious and expensive. Additionally, many studies have shown substantial inter and intra pathologist variability. Therefore, we decided to develop a quantitative 3D tissue imaging platform for use in DART studies that would remove the need for manual evaluation and would allow for automated imaging and evaluation. We call this system Digital DART which can be used to evaluate skeletons from DART studies for defects.
