Clinical Focus

• valve repair and replacement
• Thoracic Aortic surgery
• mitral repair
• Valve-sparing aortic root replacement
• Cardiothoracic Surgery

Honors and Awards

• Eugene Braunwald Mentorship Award, American Heart Association (AHA) (2009)
• President, American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) (2007-2008)
• Distinguished Scientist, American Heart Association (AHA) (2003)
• President, Western Thoracic Surgical Association (1994-1995)
• Antoine Marfan Award, National Marfans Foundation (2001)

Professional Education

Postdoctoral Advisee

Julia Swanson-Birchill

Current Research Interests

Cardiac and heart valve disease with experimental laboratory large animal projects focused on the investigation of left ventricular and cardiac mechanics, bioenergetics, and LV and mitral valve physiology and pathophysiology. Current thrust is aimed at understanding the mitral valve and subvalvular mitral apparatus and transmural LV wall strains, thickening, and myolaminar fiber-sheet mechanics.

Clinical research interests include thoracic aortic diseases (aortic dissection, aneurysm) and cardiac valvular disease, including surgical treatment, endovascular thoracic aortic stent-graft repair, mitral valve repair, and valve-sparing aortic root replacement.

Clinical Trials

• Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement Recruiting
• To evaluate the safety and efficacy for GORE TAG Thoracic Endoprosthesis in the treatment of Thoracic Aortic disease Active, not recruiting

Publications

• Heterogeneity of left ventricular wall thickening mechanisms. Cheng A, Nguyen TC, Malinowski M, Daughters GT, Miller DC, Ingels NB. Circulation. 2008; 118 (7): 713-21
• The aortopathy of bicuspid aortic valve disease has distinctive patterns and usually involves the transverse aortic arch. Fazel SS, Mallidi HR, Lee RS, Sheehan MP, Liang D, Fleischman D, Herfkens R, Mitchell RS, Miller DC. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2008; 135 (4): 901-7, 907.e1-2
• Myofiber angle distributions in the ovine left ventricle do not conform to computationally optimized predictions. Ennis DB, Nguyen TC, Riboh JC, Wigström L, Harrington KB, Daughters GT, Ingels NB, Miller DC. J Biomech. 2008; 41 (15): 3219-24
• Valve-sparing aortic root replacement: current state of the art and where are we headed? Miller DC, Ann Thorac Surg. 2007; 83 (2): S736-9; discussion S785-90
• Aortic root dynamics and surgery: from craft to science. Cheng A, Dagum P, Miller DC. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2007; 362 (1484): 1407-19