Jul 29, 2010
The Primate Foundation of Arizona (PFA) has sent CARTA 52 chimpanzee skeletons, blood serum samples, medical records, and other observation logs for 256 unique subjects. This research treasure trove represents one of the largest and most unique chimpanzee specimen collections in the United States, so CARTA is in the process of digitizing all of it in order to preserve it and make it available electronically for research projects.
3D computed tomography equipment (Clinical CT and Micro CT) is being used to digitize the bones. This effort is being performed by an expert team which embodies the multi-disciplinary nature of CARTA itself:
- Ajit Varki Principle Investigator of CARTA
- Linda Carlson CARTA MSO: overseeing digitizing interns and budget
- Pascal Gagneux CARTA Associate Director: Facilitator of the PFA collection acquisitions
- Margaret Schoeninger CARTA Co-PI: physical collections director
- Alyssa Crytenden CARTA Post-Doc: physical collections manager
- Andy Froehle CARTA Anthropology Grad-Student: skeletal materials preparations
- Andrew Samida Anthropology student: skeletal materials assistant
- Divya Venkatesh Undergraduate student: radiograph digitizing
- John Moreland Computer Scientist: Medical image data processing, visualization, and archiving
Raad the full Science Magazine article: Cutting to the Bone Of Human Origins
