As a non-profit university research facility, we specialize in providing human specimens, biobanking infrastructure, and biobanking networks to help researchers investigate various neurological diseases and chronic conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD).

Currently, our focus is on managing and distributing human postmortem brain tissue to support academic research locally, nationally, and globally, alongside collecting neurosurgical tissue, blood,  skin punches, and fibroblasts from living tissue donors. 

Any generous specimen contributions are driving significant, positive changes in diagnosis, research, education, and treatment. We invite you to explore our publications and learn more about the impact of your support.

Diagnostics:

Many brain disorders (such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease) can only be diagnosed with certainty by examining the brain after death. Some psychiatric diseases can also cause identifiable changes in the brain. Even in diseases that can be confirmed by genetic or another testing, examination of brain tissue can reveal additional diseases or unexpected effects of a known disease.

Research and Education:

While substantial progress has been made in understanding these disorders with animal models, there are still many unanswered questions to be addressed in human brains. The limited supply of donated tissues is a barrier to progress in understanding these human brain disorders.

Therapeutic and Technology Development:

By increasing the amount of tissue available for research, researchers will be able to support biotech and pharmaceutical discovery to better understand how to prevent, diagnose, treat and cure human brain disorders.