University of Chicago

The Jack Miller Center for Peripheral Neuropathy was established in May 2001 as a part of The University of Chicago's Division of Biological Sciences. The Jack Miller Center has three interrelated missions: educating the public and healthcare professionals, providing state-of-the-art treatment for patients with peripheral neuropathy and identifying causes and cures through basic and clinical research. The goal of the research component of the Miller Center is to promote multidisciplinary investigations into the cause, origin and development of peripheral neuropathies. Research includes experimental studies to determine the molecular cause and eventual cure of these disorders. The Miller Center research groups are primarily taking a molecular genetic approach to obtain a better understanding of the normal function, as well as dysfunction, of the peripheral nervous system. Over the past decade, as the DNA sequence of the human and mouse genomes has become known, the techniques associated with the identification and isolation of mutant genes in the mammalian genome have been dramatically improved. Furthermore, remarkable advances have been made in the development of quantitative approaches toward the molecular analysis of complex biological systems.