The Backbone, volume 1, number 1, Spring 2015

APPLYING NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS IN

THE COBB RESEARCH LABORATORY
Fatimah L.C. Jackson, Ph.D., Director and Curator, Cobb Research Laboratory, Howard
University (fatimah.jackson@howard.edu)
Christopher N. Cross, M.S., Assistant Curator, Cobb Research Laboratory, Howard University
(cnickcross@gmail.com)

ABSTRACT
The Cobb Research Laboratory houses two important collections, the W. Montague Cobb Collection and the New
York African Burial Ground. Taken together, we have representative bioskeletal and soil samples on African Americans
from the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries. Traditionally, the study of these materials have been limited to the fields of
biological anthropology and bioarchaeology; however, scientific breakthroughs in molecular biology, genetics and
bioinformatics will allow us to advance these collections and apply next generation science for evidence-based historically
contextualized studies. Therefore we plan to utilize computational biology and bioinformatic approaches, in addition to
developing highly nuanced databases for the Cobb Research Laboratory. These advancements will promote novel
findings and new science standards for future studies of other human skeletal collections.

The W. Montague Cobb Research

Laboratory is a unique and priceless resource
for research on the human skeletal and
bioarchaeological collections housed therein.
The two most important collections of the Cobb
Research Laboratory are the Cobb Collection
and the New York African Burial Ground. The
Cobb Collection is named after the first African
American biological anthropologist and
renowned Chair of Howard Universitys
Anatomy Department. It is a hand curated
sample of approximately 699 de-fleshed
human cadavers that were donated and
collected for scientific purposes during World
War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, and the
American Civil Rights movement from 19321969. The Cobb Collection is unique in that it is
the only skeletal collection residing at a
historically black college/ university (HBCU).
This skeletal collection is the least researched
of the three major U.S. collections and lends
itself to novel insights about the lives and
deaths of Americans living in the Washington,
D.C. area. As such, Howard University is
uniquely positioned to address large scale
skeletal biological research on African
Americans from the late 19th to mid 20th
Century. Approximately 83% of the Cobb

Collection is African American and contains

records with significant clinical and autopsy
data including age, sex, place of death,
cause(s) of death, and morbidity.
The New York African Burial Ground
Collection at the Cobb Research Lab consists
of soil and bioskeletal samples from the New
York African Burial Ground Project. This
project unearthed 419 skeletons and related
artifacts from a previously unknown and
unmarked grave site in Manhattan, NY in 1991.
Bioarchaelogists confirmed that these
individuals were in fact enslaved Africans and
African Americans from the 17th and 18th
century. This discovery was deemed
significant, so much so that the burial site has
been commemorated as a National Monument
and protected by the United States National
Park Service.
Currently we are conducting and
soliciting research on the collections in the
Cobb Research Laboratory that broadly
address important STEM science issues,
particularly regarding selection and adaptation,
genomic and epigenomic changes with respect
to the historical environments, clustering of
disease genes in individuals dying from

The Backbone, volume 1, number 1, Spring 2015

specific chronic disorders, and evidence for

health disparities 75 years ago. Most notably,
we are hoping to extract ancient DNA from
specific subsets of the collection to address
hypothesis-driven studies at the molecular and
population levels. This work will necessarily
require the merger of the skeletal materials
with the existing clinical and demographic
documentation available. Indeed, this is one of
the natural strengths of the Cobb Collection in
particular. We are interested in promoting
research that is technologically sophisticated
and historically important.
Our research direction for the Cobb
Research Laboratory will augment the
established record on these remains with
quantifiable historic geospatial data and
molecular genetic assessments such that
deeper and more specific questions can be
asked and addressed than were previously
possible. Indeed, we feel that this approach is
highly consistent with the original goals and
objectives of Dr. Cobb as articulated in his
published and unpublished writings.
To initiate this new generation of
research on the Cobb Collection, we have
established a standard scientific protocol
involving 1.) Review of all research proposals
by our internal Advisory Board and Director for
approval, 2.) Collaborative Institutional Training
Imitative (CITI) completion by all prospective
researchers, and 3.) Howard University
Institutional Review Board (IRB) clearance for
the planned research. The Cobb Collection is
not a public collection, it is a private collection
belonging to Howard University, a private
research institution of higher education, and it
is a collection to which we hope to add
additional samples over time. The Cobb
Collection is accessible to qualified
researchers through the Cobb Research
Laboratory in the College of Arts and Sciences.
All prospective researchers are asked to
complete a systematic protocol that is
consistently required of both internal and
external investigators. Even researchers

wishing to study the existing database on the

Cobb Collection are asked to submit their
research questions for review.
The uniqueness of the Cobb Research
Laboratory lays in its non-reproducible
collection of human skeletons and the
documentation that accompanies many of the
skeletons. We use the study of anatomy as a
fundamental approach to appreciate and
understand the collections from a scientific
perspective. The utility of comparative
anatomical methodology cannot go under
appreciated as it has played an important role
in Dr. Cobbs original works debunking racial
biology theories. In addition, advancements in
3D scanning and printing technology will allow
us to have not only digital but physical
replications of the human anatomy,
biomechanics, and eventually re-creation of
individuals in the collection. All of these
techniques can propel the Cobb Research Lab
in emerging fields of engineering design and
digitization.
There has been a notable paucity of
research on the living conditions, health status
and lifestyles of post-enslavement African
Americans relative to changing American
social conditions. We hope to address this
deficit by intentionally using spatial clustering
of geocoded data points to identify area and
individual level correlations of environmental
indices for each individual with documentation
in the Cobb Collection and then, whenever
possible, linking these layered measurements
with global and gene-specific epigenomic
evaluations. This effort will draw upon
resources available globally, not just at Howard
University, and we welcome collaborations
within and outside of the university, including
relevant corporations.
Using computation biology and
bioinformatic approaches, we anticipate
developing highly nuanced databases for the
Cobb Research Laboratory that will serve as
the prototype for next generation studies of
other human skeletal collections. The actual

The Backbone, volume 1, number 1, Spring 2015

transition in research methodologies for the

Cobb Collection and what remains of the New
York African Burial Ground will entail
interdisciplinary research teams of natural
scientists, social scientists, clinicians, and
physical scientists. We no longer see the Cobb
Research Laboratory as the sole or even
primary province of biological anthropology.
Indeed, we seek a more inclusive research
approach guided by the holistic evolutionary,
ecological, and biocultural orientations of
biological anthropology but including teams of
diverse scholars whose special technical
expertise will generate high quality and
innovative methods to produce novel dialogue
and insights into the Cobb Collection.
This vision for the Cobb Research
Laboratory centers about investigations guided
by the need for evidence-based, historically
contextualized studies that reflect the most
current and sophisticated methods available.
Towards that end, we have established
research Memorandums of Understanding with
the University of Copenhagen and the National
Human Genome Center at Howard University
to facilitate state of the art ancient genome
extraction and sequencing applications. We
have strong relationships with Howard
Universitys state of the art Center for
Computational Biology and BioInformatics and
many of the other new core facilities at Howard

University to generate both new types of data

and more refined versions of older data on the
Cobb Collection, in particular. We have a
growing group of clinicians with their medical
expertise from the College of Dentistry and the
College of Medicine at Howard University who
are exploring together with social and natural
scientists unique, often heretofore unstudied,
aspects of the collections and providing a
clinical assessment of the documentation
available on the many members of the Cobb
Collection.
The working vision at the Cobb
Research Laboratory emphasizes allowing
biological anthropology to take the lead in
expanding the frontiers of an inclusive
integrative anthropologic mindset into the
broad dimensions of science. Howard
University has had a long commitment to
understanding the societal implications of
science and we do not expect to waiver from
this now. We invite scientists and scholars to
join us in this interdisciplinary initiative, to join
with specialists from a variety of relevant
disciplines working collaboratively in a new
research paradigm for the Cobb Collection and
an expanded paradigm for the New York
African Burial Ground and the analysis of these
established and unique collections of human
skeletal remains.***