Stephen Douglas Miller, PhD

Professor of Microbiology-Immunology
Director, Interdepartmental Immunobiology Center
Congressman John E. Porter Professor of Biomedical Sciences
Feinberg School of Medicine

Research Interests:
Dr. Miller’s laboratory investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms of multiple aspects of the immunopathogenesis and specific immunoregulation of T cell-mediated autoimmune responses employing two mouse models of multiple sclerosis (MS) - Theiler's virus-induced demyelinating disease (a virus-induced model of MS) and Relapsing Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (R-EAE) (an autoimmune model of MS) as well as the NOD model of type 1 diabetes. Their interests include the study of: the influence of genetics and infections on the induction and chronic progression of CNS autoimmune disease; the role of innate immune signals mediated by virus infection and Toll-like receptor stimuli in the pathogenesis of CNS disease; and the molecular genetic and cellular mechanisms underlying intrinsic and induced immune regulation of peripheral T cell responses mediated by CD4+CD25+ T regulatory cells, antagonists of costimulatory interactions, and by antigen-specific T cell tolerance.

Faculty Publications:
Bailey, S.L., Schreiner, B., McMahon, E.J. and Miller, S.D. (2007) CNS myeloid dendritic cells presenting endogenous myelin peptides preferentially polarize CD4+ Th17 cells in relapsing EAE. Nat Immunol. 8:172-180

Turley, D. M. and Miller, S. D. (2007) Peripheral tolerance induction using ECDI-fixed APCs uses both direct and indirect mechanisms of antigen presentation for prevention of EAE. J Immunol. 178:2212-2220

Miller, S. D., Turley, D. M. and Podojil, J. R. (2007) Antigen-specific tolerance strategies for the prevention and treatment of autoimmune disease. Nat Rev Immunol. 7:665-677

Luo, X., Pothoven, K. L., McCarthy, D., DeGutes, M., Martin, A., Getts, D. R., Xia, G., Hie, J., Zhang, X., Kaufman, D. B. and Miller, S. D. (2008) ECDI-fixed allogeneic splenocytes induce donor-specific tolerance without lymphoid ablation resulting in long-term survival of allogeneic islet grafts via two distinct mechanisms. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 105:14527-14532

Zhang, H., Podojil, J. R., Luo, X., and Miller, S. D. (2008) Intrinsic and induced regulation of the age-associated onset of spontaneous experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. J Immunol. 181:4638-4647