The Lieber Institute has the largest collection of postmortem brains in the world. The Lieber Institute studies degenerative brain diseases, Alzheimer’s, autism, traumatic brain disorders, PTSD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, depression, and suicide, by dissecting and examining frozen brains. Anatomical brain changes alone will not reveal the causes of many brain disorders and many mental illnesses.

Immortal pathogens survive death, and likely survive being frozen, in that immortal pathogens have been recovered and revived from ancient permafrost and 1000 year-old sludge. We must identify immortal pathogens in the brain, not just anatomy, to understand brain diseases and translate knowledge into clinical advances that change lives.