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Richard Skalko
Dr. Richard G. Skalko
       Welcome to the web site of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the James H. Quillen College of Medicine. We are a part of the Division of Health Affairs of East Tennessee State University, together with the Colleges of Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Health Related Professions. As a College, we share our origins with the Colleges of Medicine at Texas A and M University, the University of South Carolina, Wright State University, and Marshall University. All of us are affiliated directly with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and we were developed under the auspices of the Teague-Cranston Act. The College, named for our long-serving Congressman James H. Quillen, was established by the Legislature of the State of Tennessee in 1974. The initial faculty was recruited in 1975-1978. We admitted the first class of students in August of 1978, and we had the honor to graduate our 25th class in May of 2006.
     The Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, has a full-time faculty of 10 scientists who came to our Institution from diverse backgrounds and established strong and well-respected teaching programs in Gross Anatomy, Cell and Tissue Biology and Neurobiology. In recent years, we have expanded our program through our participation in three new Interdisciplinary courses: Case-Oriented Learning, Human Developmental Biology and Genetics, and Clinical Neuroscience. Our effectiveness in carrying out our teaching responsibilities has resulted in several members of the faculty being recognized for the caliber of their teaching efforts by their being the recipients of a myriad of teaching awards both locally and nationally.
     Our research efforts are also diverse, and range from the determining genome size in a variety of plant and animal species, using histochemistry, the use of vascular casting in the quantitative assessment of vascular beds (especially in the renal glomerulus), to a wide range of studies in neurobiology including behavior and molecular assessment in several animal models. Additionally, we have several members of the faculty involved in research efforts in developmental toxicology, where our current emphasis employs the response of the developing zebra fish to a broad spectrum of SSRI’s.