Media Coverage

Christopher S. Cohan, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, is interviewed about UB’s Brain Museum and what makes its contents so special. “It’s something that continues to amaze me,” he said, “because it’s such a complicated organ. It’s something that we’re never going to figure out in the short term and even the long term we wonder really how much we can understand about it.”

Research by Michal K. Stachowiak, PhD, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, uses cerebral organoids, or mini brains, to understand the cause of schizophrenia. It’s “an important technical advance,” he said, and “an important initial step toward using organoids in regenerative medicine.”

Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, describes his research about what skull size and shape may tell you about an animal’s diet.

Michal K. Stachowiak, PhD, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, discusses new findings that show the early stages of pregnancy as the starting point for schizophrenia. “After centuries of patients suffering horrendous treatment, our findings now reveal that schizophrenia is a disorder of faulty brain construction during the first trimester of pregnancy, and is driven by a common dysregulated pathway,” he said.

New Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences research shows that the evolution of skull shape in the mammalian order Carnivora is more complex than previously thought and influenced by non-dietary factors. “For years, conventional thought surrounding carnivoran skull shape followed the ‘you are what you eat’ paradigm, where distantly related species evolve similar skulls because of shared dietary needs,” said Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences. “We found that to be a dramatic oversimplification.”

A new study led by Michal K. Stachowiak, PhD, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, uses cerebral organoids, or mini-brains, to understand the cause of schizophrenia. After growing the mini-brains, the research group saw architectural difference in the cortex: immature cells that would one day turn into neurons were spreading out in too many directions with too much distance between them. “I think for the first time we have a proper experimental tool to try to see if we can either correct or prevent some of these events,” he said. 

Research by Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, suggests that a now-extinct Chinese otter that roamed lakes or swamps 6 million years ago was almost as large as a wolf and had jawbones capable of crushing large shells, as well as birds and mammals, making it a key predator in its ecosystem. “We don’t know for sure, but we think that this otter was more of a top predator than living species of otters are,” Tseng says. “Our findings imply that Siamogale could crush much harder and larger prey than any living otter can.”

Research led by Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, suggests that a now-extinct Chinese otter that roamed lakes or swamps was almost as large as a wolf and had jawbones capable of crushing large shells, as well as birds and mammals, making it a key predator in its ecosystem. The researchers developed a computer model to test their guess that jaw strength would depend on what foods the species prefers. "You don't need to chew fish, you just sort of bite on it and swallow," Tseng said.

Michal K. Stachowiak, PhD, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, is asked about mini-brains and the scientific debate over the ethics of implanting human organoid tissue into the brains of mice. He said if organoids grow closer to the size of full human brains, even the size of an infant’s brain, they’d start to require oxygen and nutrients to keep themselves going. But once you’ve gone from a tiny “brain in a dish” to a larger organ with more and more of the stuff inside our skulls, it’s harder not to wonder if some lines should be drawn, he added.

An article in Newsweek about a new study that uses lab-grown mini-brains known as cerebral organoids to explain the effects of psychedelics on the human brain quotes Michal K. Stachowiak, PhD, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “It’s an interesting study, but I’m not sure the model was properly developed. I’m skeptical this model could or should be used to reflect a full adult human brain,” Stachowiak said.

An article about an institute that is building a library of 3D pictures of human nerve cells interviews Michal K. Stachowiak, PhD, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, who said the database could eventually answer a central question by connecting genomic data with the pictures: what difference in a person’s genetic material can give rise to things like tumors and epilepsy? “It’s never been done,” he said. “And if you do it, you gain such vast information.”

An article on Kopitiam Bot, a news, lifestyle and technology website in Singapore, reports on research co-authored by Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, on a fossilized carnivore jawbone that belonged to a beardog, an early, long-extinct relative of dogs, foxes and weasels that lived up to 40 million years ago. “We’re not saying we’ve solved where they fit on the tree of life, but it’s the most progress that’s been made in quite a while. Our work provides a clearer connection between the rest of the beardog family and their evolutionary roots.”

Research by Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, suggests that otters may have migrated across America about 6 million years ago along the northern edge of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, which runs across Mexico. “This is an entirely new idea that no one else has proposed,” he said. “We think it’s very likely other animals utilized this route.”

A Science article about two male African lions that killed 35 people in 1898 and the longstanding debate over whether tooth decay caused the lions to begin eating human flesh, interviews Jack Tseng, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and anatomical sciences and a vertebrate paleontologist.

Research by Michal K. Stachowiak, PhD, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, shows that a common genomic pathway lies at the root of schizophrenia and could be a step toward the design of treatments that could be administered to pregnant mothers at high risk of bearing a child with schizophrenia, potentially preventing the disease before it begins.