James G. Miller, Ph.D., considers himself a lucky guy. Sitting in his Compton Hall office recently, the experimental physicist had just begun to describe his research to a visitor when he suddenly stopped, turned in his chair, pointed to four computer-controlled ultrasonic instruments sitting on a cart behind him, and said, "You know, what a picnic -- somebody pays me to play with all these wonderful toys!"
His enthusiasm for his work goes beyond his hands-on research, which focuses on advancing ultrasound as a cardiology diagnostic tool. He speaks with just as much excitement when he discusses teaching undergraduates in his "Physics of the Heart" class. "I put a lot of time into it," he said in reference to the course he developed 20 years ago, "and I love every minute of it. The students are some of the brightest people you could ever meet. I really consider it a privilege to teach here."
Miller, a professor of physics in Arts and Sciences, also is a research professor of medicine at the School of Medicine -- an unusual joint appointment considering that the two fields are so different. More unusual is the fact that Miller knows his way around an operating room just as well as he knows what's what in a physics lab.
How did Miller, a traditionally educated physicist, become a research partner with cardiologists at the medical school? It started with a telephone call. As a new faculty member in the Department of Physics after having received a doctorate in 1969 from Washington University, Miller began to explore the concept of using ultrasound in areas involving biology and medicine.
Meanwhile, over at the medical school, Richard E. Clark, M.D., a cardiothoracic surgeon, had heard that ultrasound could be a useful tool in determining whether blood returning to patients during cardiothoracic surgery contained harmful microemboli. Clark called the physics department's Laboratory for Ultrasonics for some advice.
Next thing Miller knew, he was in surgical scrubs watching a device he developed -- a kind of ultrasonic alarm system -- monitor blood returning to a patient from a heart-lung machine during open-heart surgery.
This was the first milestone resulting from a collaboration that has lasted more than 20 years. The researchers on both campuses saw great potential in using ultrasound to look into the body non-invasively -- without ionizing radiation or pain and discomfort to the patient.
Miller said then that the best way they could make a truly fundamental contribution to advancing the use of ultrasound as a diagnostic tool was by first understanding the physics, physiology and pathophysiology of the heart. "I knew we had to look beyond just making a better picture of the heart. That was going to be useful, but the real contribution started with understanding how the heart really functions and then extending that," Miller said.
Washington University's team of cardiologists and physicists did just that, Miller said, when they pioneered myocardial ultrasonic tissue characterization. Through a non-invasive procedure, this technique allows physicians not only to see an image of the heart but also to see if the heart is diseased. For example, the procedure can show if the heart is getting enough blood. An image of even a diseased heart can look quite normal, but a tissue characterization of the same heart can reveal the effects of whatever damage has occurred and can help physicians determine proper treatment, such as angioplasty.
Two other products Miller and members of his team developed early in their research earned them Industrial Research magazine's highly coveted I-R 100 awards -- referred to by some as the Nobel Prizes of industry. His ultrasonic instrument for monitoring microscopic particles in patients' blood during open-heart surgery was cited as one of the 100 most significant new technical products of 1974. The other I-R award, presented in 1978, recognized an acoustoelectric transducer system.
Samuel A. Wickline, M.D., an associate professor of medicine who has worked closely with Miller for more than 10 years, credits the physicist with speeding the progress of their research. "His ability to speak more than one scientific language -- that is, medicine, physics and engineering -- that cross fertilization, is why we do so well in the lab," Wickline said. "When you have someone who can serve as the translator for these seemingly disparate disciplines, that's when you make progress.
"It's fashionable today to talk about multidisciplinary work, but this is what's been going on for the last 20-plus years because of Jim. Most in medicine are intimidated by physics and engineering. His ability to communicate in a simple and relevant way makes it easy for us to interact with him and his colleagues. He's enabled us to tackle problems and make progress at a faster clip because we weren't isolated," Wickline added.
Miller's ultrasound research isn't limited to medical applications. Director of the Laboratory for Ultrasonics since 1987, Miller and other members of the physics department also are using ultrasound to study, among other things, the mechanical properties of high-performance materials used in aircraft and spacecraft. The research group collaborates with such companies as McDonnell Douglas Corp., as well as with the NASA-Langley Research Center, to help develop and test lightweight, high-strength materials that can withstand the stress of air and space travel.
Miller has been working with hands-on, "technologically interesting" things his whole life. He got his first amateur ham radio operator license in the sixth grade. Neither his mother, an immigrant from Ireland, nor his father, a native St. Louisan who routed trains, had the opportunity to begin high school, but both encouraged their son to attend college. Miller received a bachelor's degree in physics, summa cum laude, in 1964 from Saint Louis University and master's and doctoral degrees in physics in 1966 and 1969 from Washington University.
While in graduate school here, he pursued theoretical physics but soon realized he was too far removed from doing what he's loved since childhood. "Experimentalists were in the lab twisting knobs and making measurements, and I was sitting at a desk; the frustration level was just too high," he said.
Miller began getting paid for "playing" with things at a fairly young age. When he was 12, he and a friend started a business, complete with business cards, called "Mitchell and Miller Radio and TV Repair" in their north St. Louis neighborhood.
"We actually did very well," Miller said. "We had all of the neighborhood business and probably succeeded in repairing about three-fourths of what came to us. About one-fourth was beyond us, and we would apologize and bring it back." Profits basically went back into the business to purchase equipment. The two kept the repair business going until other obligations as upperclassmen in high school forced them to close shop.
He believes that having had that hands-on experience was an asset when he started college, and he believes it's vitally important for his students today.
"There's no substitute for learning with your hands and mind together," he said. "If there were any way that I would like to improve the education of scientists and engineers, it is to put even more emphasis on hands-on laboratory work as part of the educational process. It's expensive because you need a lot more equipment. It's time-expensive because you have to have almost one-on-one or very small group teaching. But the level of education is far better than somebody standing at a blackboard and drawing things and talking."
Miller practices what he preaches. As an adviser to about 20 doctoral students over the years, he's made sure they've all had practical "get-your-hands-dirty" experiences. Whether working with a machinist in the physics department's machine shop designing and building an ultrasonic scanning device or making the rounds with a cardiologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, his graduate students are learning by doing.
Another teaching tool Miller initiated for the graduate students in his research group is a get-together from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. every Thursday to discuss what the students as well as senior members of the team -- including cardiologists from the medical school -- have accomplished the previous week. In addition, the group of about 15 gets together every Monday night to hear a 60-minute lecture from a team member, followed by 30 minutes discussing the latest in instrumentation.
Taken primarily by pre-medicine undergraduates with some physics and engineering students enrolled, the course teaches cardiovascular physiology within the context of physics. Miller said the students already have had first-year physics in which they've learned the basic tools but not, however, the implications of physical laws in the biological and medical sciences.
Miller, who received the 1989 Faculty Teaching Award from the Council of Students of Arts and Sciences, said he builds on that demanding introductory course to help the students see firsthand how physics is relevant to what they will be doing in medicine.
Wickline, who along with others from the medical school serves as a guest lecturer in "Physics of the Heart," wishes he had such a course when he was in school. "I think Jim is one of the finest examples I've come across of someone who can make difficult, potentially dry material both easy and relevant," Wickline said.
Tom Shoup, Ph.D., a former graduate student of Miller's who is a research manager at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, agrees. "When Jim teaches, he broaches a subject in very practical terms as opposed to very theoretical terms," Shoup said. Recalling how Miller used a tangerine to demonstrate how forces are measured in newtons, Shoup said, "You'd go away from his class with an understanding that was couched in terms and descriptions very familiar to you."
Miller doesn't believe he's doing anything extraordinary -- just fulfilling the role of a professor. "Our education gives us the opportunity to do cutting-edge work and then to communicate it across boundaries because it's not so difficult to communicate to the person next door or down the hall; what is difficult is to communicate to a broader audience," he said.
-- Susan Killenberg
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