Department of Anatomy
Anatomy is the study of the structure, function, development, growth and aging of the living body. It is concerned with these at all levels: whole body, systems, tissues, cells and cell components down to the macromolecular level. It integrates all of these at the structural, functional and dynamic orders. The discipline continues to be fundamental to programmes across biological and Health Sciences spectra, in both teaching and research [ Anatomy 2020 ].
Teaching involves a range of courses delivered in the programmes of all the constituent Schools of the College of Medicine & Health, in the Biological Sciences area of the College of Science, Engineering & Food Science, and in Arts. Most of these are at the foundational level, as befits the discipline. In addition, and most significantly, the Department has its own flagship degree programme, the BSc Neuroscience, which was the first such programme to be established in Ireland.
The research programme consists of coherently linked projects in the fields of development, degeneration and regeneration. It ranges from fundamental studies to the development of strategies for neuroprotection, neuroregeneration and restoration of function of damaged tissue in neuroinflammatory disorders. Most of the experimental programme is multidisciplinary, within and outside the group. The experimental programme encompasses genetic, molecular, cellular, tissue, system and behavioural levels. The range of techniques and expertise available is broad and is particularly strong in relation to post-genomic and cellular studies, whereby molecular events are analysed and are located with high precision in cells and tissues, in order to understand the complex interplay of events.
The essential mission of the Department is
- to provide high quality education in all aspects of the discipline at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, inducing a life-long spirit of critical enquiry in its students, and
- to carry out research to the highest standard, training its graduate and undergraduate students in rational, critical analysis.
Department Of Anatomy Locations
The Department is based in the Windle Building on the main UCC campus, in a Victorian Gothic Revival building. Many components of teaching, including Dissection, Histology, take place here. Lectures to the larger classes and Clinical Anatomy teaching sessions are delivered in the new Medical Sciences complex in the Brookfield section of the Campus.
Biosciences Institute
The Research Labs are located in the BioSciences Institute, completed in 2002. [Professor Fraher was foundation Director of the BioSciences Institute, for its planning, design and establishment.] The Anatomy department is the largest component of the Neuroscience element of the BioSciences Institute. Plans are being conceived at present to transfer the teaching and some research elements of the Department to a new Medical Sciences facility.
History of the Department
The departments of Anatomy and Physiology were originally one but went their separate ways in the early 1900s. Over the past 20 years the department has been completely renovated internally and includes an advanced mortuary facility, a newly installed dissecting room in keeping with the architectural ambience of the original building, and several research laboratories with the latest equipment for microscopy and analysis (see below). The first Professor was Benjamin Alcock who first definitively described the eponymous pudendal (Alcock's) canal. More recently, the Chair was held from 1942 to 1973 by M.A. MacConaill who made fundamental contributions to joint mechanics. Since the 1980s the principal research activity has been in the field of Neuroscience. In this context, the department now offers a BSc degree programme in Neuroscience, the first in this country.