Laurence Miller, M.D., named Director of NCI-designated Mayo Clinic Cancer Center in Scottsdale

Wednesday, July 17, 2002

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., July 17, 2002 – Along with designation as the Phoenix area's only Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale will soon have a new leader overseeing its cancer center.

Laurence J. Miller, M.D., becomes Deputy Director of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center – Scottsdale, and Director of Research at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale effective August 1, 2002.

For the past 23 years, Dr. Miller has been a consultant in the Department of Gastroenterology and Internal Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Dr. Miller is currently the President-elect of the American Pancreatic Association, and is widely acknowledged as an expert in pancreatic diseases, including pancreatic cancer.

"Cancer patients coming to Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale will benefit from the NCI designation because they'll have access to more clinical trials for cancer, increased funding for cancer research and the advanced integration of clinical collaboration among the three Mayo Clinic sites," says Dr. Miller. "I've seen first-hand through my experience at the NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer at Mayo Clinic in Rochester the advantages of being an integrated multi-discipline center when it comes to providing the highest level of cancer research, diagnosis and treatment for patients."

Career highlights in Dr. Miller's experience include:

• His long-standing research focus has been in the area of cell surface receptors that represent the site of action of circulating hormones and are common targets for drug therapy. Abnormalities in these molecules can lead to abnormal cell growth that can be important in the development and progression of cancer.
• Dr. Miller's group is using molecular genetic techniques to try to identify cancer at an earlier stage when it has the best chance of being cured by surgery. The same techniques are also being applied to identify targets for novel immunologic approaches to the treatment of more advanced forms of pancreatic cancer.
• Dr. Miller received the MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health for 2001-2009, and was named the Karl F. And Marjory Hasselmann Professor of Research at Mayo Medical School earlier this year.
• Having published over 150 journal articles, Dr. Miller has received numerous awards and recognition during his distinguished career.
• Dr. Miller received his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, and completed an internal medicine residency at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine in Rochester, Minn.
• He also completed a fellowship in Gastroenterology at Mayo Graduate School of Medicine, and a post-doctoral fellowship in cell biology at Yale School of Medicine.

EDITORS NOTE: Photographs of Dr. Miller are available upon request. To arrange interviews with Dr. Miller, please contact Anne Tewksbury at 480-301-4368.

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