Principal Investigator
Honors & News
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March 14, 2012
Taking another Shot at RAGE to Tame Alzheimer's
Benjamin Miller, Ph.D., and Itender Singh, Ph.D.
Researchers have taken another crack at a promising approach to stopping Alzheimer's disease that encountered a major hurdle last year. In research published this week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, scientists have developed a compound that targets a molecular actor known as RAGE, which plays a central role in mucking up the brain tissue of people with the disease.
Scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center and the University of Southern California synthesized a compound that stops RAGE in mice - reversing amyloid deposits, restoring healthy blood flow in the brain, squelching inflammation, and making old, sick mice smarter. But the scientists caution that the work has a long way to go before it's considered as a possible treatment in people.
In the latest work, Zlokovic and colleagues screened thousands of compounds for anti-RAGE activity and identified three that seemed promising. Then the team turned to chemists Benjamin Miller, Ph.D., and graduate student Nathan Ross. The pair analyzed the compounds' molecular structures, then used that knowledge to create dozens of candidates likely to have activity against RAGE.
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August 26, 2011
Integrated Nanosystems Center Opens Today
U.S. Rep. Louise Slaughter will join UR President Joel Seligman, Hajim School Dean Rob Clark, and Department of Physics and Astronomy Chair Nicholas Bigelow today for the opening of the Intergrated Nanosystems Center. A news conference is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in Munnerlyn Atrium, Goergen Hall. The facility brings together the disciplines of physics, optics, chemistry, biomedicine, and bioengineering to enable research in the fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology.
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July 7, 2011
Hsin-I Peng Successfully Defends Ph.D. Thesis
Congratulations to Hsin-I Peng, who successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis in Biomedical Engineering today. Hsin will be moving to a postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Gang Bao at Georgia Tech.
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June 24, 2011
Leslie Ofori Wins Best Poster at 2011 Gordon Research Conference
Congratulations to Leslie Ofori for winning a
best poster
award at the 2011 Gordon Research Conference in High Throughput Chemistry and Chemical Biology. As part of his award, Leslie will present an invited talk at the 2013 conference. -
November 22, 2010
Ben Miller Speaks at TEDxRochester
Ben Miller talks about how we apply
Play
to our exploration of human health. -
November 1, 2010
'Smart Bandage' Diagnoses Danger Before Infection Takes Hold
Benjamin Miller, professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University, and Philippe Fauchet, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, have devised a sand-grain sized wafer that can differentiate between two classes of bacteria, called Gram-positive and Gram-negative.
The sensor, the first substantial improvement in identifying Gram-positive and negative bacteria since Hans Christian Joachim Gram developed the original staining technique in 1884, is reported in the upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The accomplishment is evidence that it's indeed possible to accurately identify bacteria with a silicon sensor, spurring Miller's team to expand the research to several other types of bacteria, including salmonella, listeria and enteropathogenic E. coli, all of which can cause serious disease in humans.
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September 27, 2010
2010 Future of Health Technology Award Presented to Professor Benjamin Miller
Professor Benjamin L. Miller (Dermatology, Biomedical Engineering, and Biochemistry & Biophysics) has been named the recipient of the 2010 Future of Health Technology Award for his pioneering work in the development of super-sensitive diagnostic devices.
The award was presented during the annual Future of Health Technology Summit, in Cambridge from Sept. 27-28. The summit will focus on the development of new health technologies across the globe.
Miller's work is exemplified by the development of new biosensors and diagnostic devices, including the
DNA NanoLantern
and sensors sensitive enough to detect single viruses.The award is given to those whose work can help reduce suffering, maximize the potential for self-realization and extend human potential with technology. Professor Miller's efforts truly improve the human condition and will revolutionize the way we live,
said Renata Bushko, director of FHTI. -
January 31, 2010
Adarza is Changing the Future of Diagnostic Testing
Ben Miller, of Adarza BioSystems (Courtesy of Carlos Ortiz, Democrat and Chronicle staff photographer)
Adarza BioSystems Inc., a University of Rochester innovation being turned into an everyday, commercially applicable medical device, is at a point somewhere between the defrosting and the baking.
Like Kodak's camera and Xerox's copier, Adarza, based at the High Tech Rochester new business incubator, is really one core product upon which success will rise or fall. Essentially, it's a biomedical screen or sensor that at microscopic levels uses reflecting laser light to pick out particular biomarkers, or molecules.
More broadly, Adarza, a Sanskrit word meaning reflected image, feeds Rochester's economic future with the prototypical recipe of imaging innovation, optical precision and engineering brilliance that is calibrated to a mobile, do-it-now medical culture. Benjamin Miller, a faculty member and biomedical research scientist at UR, did the heavy intellectual lifting on Adarza technology in partnership with UR chemist Lewis Rothberg.
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February 20, 2009
Benjamin Miller wins Health Care Achievement Award in Innovation from the Rochester Business Journal
Fourteen individuals and an imaging system technology have been selected as recipients of Rochester Business Journal 2009 Health Care Achievement Awards. BME professor, Dr. Benjamin Miller was honored as one of the recipients of this year's award. Dr. Miller has founded two local companies based on diagnostic biosensing technologies developed in his laboratory.
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October 31, 2006
Do I Know You, Sugar?
The molecule TW545 can recognise a carbohydrate-containing bacterial toxin.
A molecule that can recognise carbohydrates could further the fight against infections. The carbohydrate-containing compound lipid A is found in certain bacteria and can cause septic shock, a serious condition that may lead to organ failure and death. Ben Miller at the University of Rochester, New York, US, said molecules that selectively bind lipid A could be used to diagnose infection or to treat septic shock.
Molecular recognition of carbohydrates is a challenging problem,
said Miller.Carbohydrates look a lot like bulk solvent, and are more complex than other biopolymers because they have a lot of branching points.
Despite these problems Miller and his University of Rochester co-workers succeeded in designing a molecule, called TW545, that recognises lipid A.Miller describes TW545 as a 'stepping stone' towards new strategies for molecular recognition of carbohydrates. He is particularly interested in using carbohydrate-binding molecules for diagnostic purposes. Many proteins relevant to human health contain carbohydrate groups, said Miller, so molecules that recognise these could be put to good medical use.
Recent Publications
- (2013 Jun 15). Selective virus detection in complex sample matrices with photonic crystal optical cavities. Biosens Bioelectron. 44, 229-34.
- (2013 May 08). Dissociable executive functions in behavioral variant frontotemporal and Alzheimer dementias. Neurology. In press.
- (2013 Mar 25). Neurodegenerative Disease Phenotypes in Carriers of MAPT p.A152T, A Risk Factor for Frontotemporal Dementia Spectrum Disorders and Alzheimer Disease. Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord. In press.
