History

Now in its third century, the University of Maryland School of Medicine was chartered in 1807 as the first public medical school in the United States. It continues today as one of the fastest growing, top-tier biomedical research enterprises in the world -- with 46 academic departments, centers, institutes, and programs, and a faculty of more than 3,000 physicians, scientists, and allied health professionals, including members of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and a distinguished two-time winner of the Albert E. Lasker Award in Medical Research.

In 1991, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child and Human Development funded a Brain and Tissue Bank at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore Maryland, at the request of families who wanted increased research on developmental disorders. At its conception, the NICHD Brain and Tissue Bank for Developmental Disorders was led by Dr. H. Ronald Zielke and became a major source of brain tissue for medical research.

In 2014, the NICHD Brain and Tissue Bank for Developmental Disorders joined the NIH NeuroBioBank and expanded beyond developmental disorders, becoming the University of Maryland Brain and Tissue Bank (UMBTB).

In 2017, Dr. Thomas Blanchard was named the new director of UMBTB after Dr. Zielke retired. Dr. Blanchard is the current director and oversees the function of the UMBTB as a part of the NIH NeuroBioBank network. UMBTB continues to collect and distribute brain tissue across the country for a plethora of disorders, while maintaining a focus on pediatric disorders of the nervous system.