Division of Human Anatomy and Structural Biology

The Division of Human Anatomy, a unit within the Department of Radiology, jointly serves the College of Human Medicine and the College of Osteopathic Medicine. Our division includes faculty members engaged in multidisciplinary biomedical science teaching for pre-professional students, medical students, and medical residents throughout Michigan. Faculty have advanced degrees in a wide range of fields including allopathic medicine, anatomy, biophysics, engineering, neuroscience, occupational therapy, osteopathic medicine, pathology, physical anthropology, physiology, psychology, and veterinary medicine.

The primary mission of the Division of Human Anatomy is teaching and administration of both professional and pre-professional courses. These include a medical gross anatomy lecture and laboratory course, a pre-professional human gross anatomy lecture course, and a directed-study prosection laboratory course. Faculty also teach several neuroscience graduate courses, the laboratory portion of medical neuroscience as well as medical embryology. The medical histology laboratory experience of a novel two semester sequence which integrates medical physiology, biochemistry, and cell biology is another part of our core mission. Additionally, several of our faculty members have earned college-wide and university-wide recognition in teaching excellence.

The division's Brain Biodiversity Bank website offers, among other features, online atlases of stained sections of brains of humans and sheep that are used worldwide as class materials in human medicine, veterinary medicine, and biomedical sciences. The human atlas includes corresponding MRI images in three dimensions and is currently rated by Google as the most used Human Brain Atlas on the Internet.

Although we are not a degree granting unit, for those interested in exploring a career in medical education, we offer a Certificate in Anatomy Teaching to qualified MSU graduate students.

Anthony Paganini, Ph.D.
Director, Division of Human Anatomy
atp@rad.msu.edu

E. James Potchen, M.D.
Chairperson, Department of Radiology