Dr. Robert Miller is the Allen C. Holmes Professor of Neurological Diseases and a Professor of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Miller also holds appointments at the Cancer Center and Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospitals of Cleveland, and serves on the staff for the Brain Tumor Institute and Lerner Institute’s Department of Neuroscience at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. He is also the Director of the Center for Translational Neuroscience.

Dr. Miller has a primary interest in CNS neural development with a focus on understanding the biology of neural diseases including Multiple Sclerosis, Brain tumors and Cerebral Palsy. Dr. Miller’s development research has focused on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate glial cell determination in the developing vertebrate CNS. Oligodendrocytes, the myelinating cells of the CNS, develop from precursors that arise in distinct locations within the embryonic neural tube. The origin of oligodendrocyte precursors is a result of local signaling including expression of sonic hedgehog. A number of other influences are required to develop the final pattern of oligodendrocyte in the mature tissue. These include dispersal signals to guide cell migration and stop signals such as the chemokine CXCL1 that position precursors to receive appropriate proliferative and differentiative cues. Dr. Miller’s lab is currently defining the interplay between these different signals in order to gain a complete understanding of oligodendrogenesis.