Anatomy and Cell Biology

The Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology

The Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology has as its core mandate to provide a comprehensive, foundational understanding of the structural organisation of the human body, integrating structure with function, in order to train future physicians, allied health professionals and biomedical researchers. Teaching is practical and engaging, and lays a solid foundation for the future practice of medicine.

The teaching of human anatomy is integrated with other disciplines, so that students appreciate how structure and function interplay in the performance of everyday activities. The Department has content experts who are dedicated, friendly and student centred, and who instruct and encourage students to bring out their very best.

Teaching and learning currently focus on the undergraduate level and on students in the Graduate Entry Programme. Proposals to begin MPhil and PhD programmes in Anatomy have been submitted and are at various stages of approval. The Department is also exploring collaboration with sister departments in other medical schools.

We operate a fully functional, state of the art commercial morgue which serves the Cape Coast community and its environs, together with the biggest dissecting hall in the West African sub region. See the dissecting hall.

Key pillars of our mandate

Medical education, training and research

• Teaching the core sub disciplines: gross (macroscopic) anatomy, microscopic anatomy (histology), neuroanatomy, and embryology and developmental biology.
• Using practical methods such as cadaveric dissection, laboratory apprenticeships and histopathology equipment.
• Providing the structural foundation required for physical diagnosis, clinical reasoning, surgical skills and the interpretation of medical scans.

Community service and institutional support

• Supporting hospital and community health needs, including commercial morgue services.
• Generating internally generated funds that support key facilities, infrastructure and staff development.

Research

Current research in the Department includes:

• Anthropometric measures of the foramen magnum and the occipital condyles
• Interpupillary distance
• Patterns of bone ossification and the factors that affect them
• An anatomical assessment of the pedicles of the C3 to C7 vertebrae and its implications for transpedicular screw fixation in the Ghanaian population
• An anthropometric study of nasal indices among the Akan people of the Assin districts, Central Region, Ghana
• The impact of online learning on anatomy education among medical students
• microRNA
• Ultrastructural hepatic damage in murine malaria, with and without prandial natural cocoa powder and artemether lumefantrine treatment

Faculty have authored and co authored a number of publications in notable international journals in recent years, with further research ongoing.