The mission of the Department includes the following:

• To provide teaching programs for:
  
  Medical students: To offer teaching programs in human gross anatomy, histology, embryology, cell biology and neuroscience that are pertinent to the career goals of medical students and that encompass ongoing advances in each field.
  
  Graduate students: To train skilled investigators in multidisciplinary research who are capable of functioning as educators and independent scientists.
  
  Physicians-in-training: To provide continuing medical education in the anatomical sciences with relevance to career goals of physicians.
   
• To perform innovative multidisciplinary research that results in the acquisition of new knowledge and an understanding of vertebrate structure and function with particular emphasis on the eye and neuroscience, including brain, spinal cord and retina, a part of the brain.
   
• To provide service and support for professional activities with the School of Medicine and Wayne State University, as well as at local, national and international levels.