Around 50% of individuals with a suspected genetic disorder remain undiagnosed after a complete clinical evaluation, which often takes years to complete. We believe this burden on patients and families is simply too high. In the Miller Lab, our goals are threefold: to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of genetic testing, to promote equity in genetic testing by reducing barriers to receiving a comprehensive genetic evaluation, and to better understand human genetic disease through the identification and characterization of novel disease-causing variation.
Dr. Miller is a physician-scientist who specalizes in understanding the genetic basis of disease. His research applies new technology such as long-read sequencing (LRS) to improve genetic testing and reduce diagnostic times, with an emphasis on using these tools to understand how complex genomic variation contributes to disease. Dr. Miller’s work encompasses evaluating genes linked to Mendelian conditions, identifying missing disease-causing variation, and implementing LRS into current clinical practice. He has assembled and analyzed genomes from multiple organisms and developed tools for LRS data analysis both at the population level and for rare genetic conditions. His lab is dedicated to simplifying diagnostic testing and improving patient outcomes through innovative LRS-based clinical tests, with a strong commitment to data sharing and collaboration.
Research Assistant
PhD Student, Public Health Genetics
PhD Student, Genome Sciences
Lab Manager
Research Genetic Counselor
PhD Student, Molecular & Cellular Biology
Master's Student, Genetic Epidemiology
Visiting Scientist
Research Coordinator
Research Scientist
Research Scientist
Veterinary Resident
Master's Student, Laboratory Medicine
Computational Biologist
2024.10.01
Register by 10/16 for the 2nd Annual Seattle-area Long-Read Sequencing Symposium. This year's speakers include: Jay Sarthy, Chia Lin Wei, Mitchell Vollger, Jesse Bengtsson, Scott Furlan, and Evan Eichler.
REGISTER2024.04.01
The lab has been hard at work analyzing data from the 1000 Genomes Project ONT Sequencing Consortium. See the preprint on medRxiv from our analysis of the first 100 samples sequenced as part of this project, and check out this nice summary from the BBI featuring grad students Sophie, Nihkita, and Gus!
1KGP-ONT CONSORTIUM2023.10.16
Miller Lab member KC Kent is surveying providers who order genetic testing about their experience with long-read sequencing and their opinions about LRS as a clinical diagnostic test. No experience with LRS? That's OK – we still want to learn what factors you use to choose a genetic test. All participation is valuable.
COMPLETE THE SURVEY2023.09.19
Danny recently sat down for a Q&A about the upcoming Long-Read Sequencing Symposium at Fred Hutch Cancer Center on November 15. Click below to register, or email BBI-events@uw.edu for more information.
REGISTER2023.09.06
Very excited for Miller Lab member Sophie Gibson, who has been awarded an NIH/NHGRI Genome Training Grant through the UW Department of Genome Sciences.
2023.08.29
Our book Genetic Theory and Analysis: Finding Meaning in a Genome is finally available to order! Feeling so lucky for the privilege of working on this with our friend and mentor Scott Hawley ❤️
2023.07.29
Applications are due August 15 for the 2023 Computational Genomics course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. Danny will be co-teaching the course this year with David Hawkins and Lauren Mills.
⇩
LEARN MORE
2023.06
Excited to receive the UW Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology's Building Bridges Award with co-PI Dr. Brian Shirts. This will help fund work by grad student Nikhita Damaraju, who is pursuing a PhD in Public Health Genetics.
2023.05.29
Very happy to welcome two talented graduate students to our team, Sophie Gibson (Genome Sciences) and J. (Gus) Gustafson (Molecular & Cellular Biology).
2023.03.01
Congratulations to Danny on being selected as one of this year's recipients of the American Society for Clinical Investigation's Young Physician-Scientist Award, which recognizes early-career physician-scientists who have made notable achievements in their research.
2023.02.13
Thanks to the Brotman Baty Institute for this nice writeup about some of the work we do in the Miller Lab. We're starting to test out single-cell Nanoopore sequencing, so let us know if you are interested in trying it out.
LEARN MORE
2023.01.08
Check out these recent talks at the 2022 Nanopore Community Meeting and a UW Laboratory Medicine & Pathology Grand Rounds to hear about how the Miller Lab is using long-read sequencing in unsolved genetic disorders.
2022.10.04
Danny here... Incredibly honored to be selected for an NIH Director’s Early Independence Award (DP5), and incredibly grateful to the mentors who helped me get here.
2022.09.13
We did a thing! Using ONT long-read sequencing, we determined a newborn's genetic risk within three hours of the infant's birth. Check out the preprint.
⇩
READ IT! »
2022.09.09
We're currently recruiting for a postdoc position. Ideal candidates should have programming knowledge as well as wet lab experience and an interest in long-read sequencing.
APPLY HERE »Nice writeup on GenomeWeb about our project to sequence 500 of the 1000 Genomes Project samples using Nanopore. Excited to work on this with Evan Eichler and about a hundred other folks!
2022.07.08
Lots of green!
👍
2022.05.13
We're excited to collaborate with ONT to sequence 500 of the 1000 Genomes samples. If you're interested in working on this project or joining the 1000G ONT Sequencing Consortium, please reach out.
LEARN MORE »2022.05.12
Hi folks, we're opening our lab in July 2022 in the Departments of Pediatrics and Laboratory Medicine & Pathology at the University of Washington. We use long-read sequencing on the Oxford Nanopore platform to find the genetic basis for rare genetic disorders. If you have interesting unsolved cases, drop us a note. We love collaborating on tricky problems!
2022.04.29
Danny's contribution to the Telomere-to-Telomere project was highlighted by the Brotman Baty Institute.
LEARN MORE »2022.04.25
We're sequencing cases that will be presented during the Unsolved session at the 2022 David W. Smith Workshop this August. If you're attending the meeting and have an unsolved genetics case, let us know!
2022.11.21
Danny's targeted long-read sequencing paper was highlighted in AJMG, GenomeWeb, and ClinicalOMICS!
READ THE PAPER »We are interested in understanding why 50% of individuals with a suspected genetic disorder remain unsolved after a complete clinical evaluation. Using long-read DNA and RNA sequencing, we identify disease-causing variants that would be difficult or impossible to resolve using standard clinical testing. We are always happy to collaborate, so reach out if you have a challenging unsolved case.
Standard clinical genetic testing can take years to complete and is diagnostic only 50% of the time. It's a challenging process often referred to as the diagnostic odyssey. We are working to change this paradigm by using long-read sequencing as a single test in the clinical setting. Our efforts extend beyond the genetics clinic into spaces such as cancer biology and infectious disease.
A major challenge when analyzing long-read sequencing data is interpreting all of the structural variants that are found. In collaboration with Oxford Nanopore, we are sequencing a large number of 1000 Genomes Project samples to understand what normal human structural variation looks like and to build a database of controls for everyone to use. Check out the 1000G ONT Sequencing Consortium site for more information.
LEARN MORE »
Because long-read sequencing data contain signal for both the DNA sequence and methylation status, we can identify differences in methylation in unsolved cases and healthy controls. We are building tools to identify differences in methylation genome-wide and understand what methylation looks like in a large number of healthy controls.
This is how we got into Nanopore sequencing! We are always interested in sequencing and assembling genomes from all critters big and small. We're part of a large group working on sequencing all of the species in the Drosophila species group, and we're interested in all types of genome assembly projects.
Sequencing of native RNA is just cool. We do RNA sequencing of our unsolved clinical cases and are interested in using long reads to identify tissue-specific isoforms and expression. Also, what are all those RNA modifications doing? Sequencing of native RNA from different tissues is going to be interesting.
The Miller Lab operates the University of Washington Nanopore Sequencing Core, which provides long-read sequencing on the Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) platform to researchers at UW, SCH, SCRI, FHCC, external institutions, and private companies. Services include whole-genome sequencing, RNA sequencing, variant calling and phasing, and methylation calling. If you are interested in long-read sequencing services, please visit the UW Nanopore Sequencing Core site for more information about sample preparation, options, and costs.
We are so very grateful for the generous support our research program receives from the following programs:
We appreciate your interest in our research. If you would like to make a contribution to a Miller Lab study, please write a brief letter designating the funds to research by Danny E. Miller, MD, PhD, and indicate the study topic you wish to support. Include your name and address in the letter, and send it with a check or money order to:
Miller Laboratory, Department of Pediatrics
University of Washington
1959 NE Pacific Street, Box 356320
Seattle, WA 98195-6320