Nancy S. Miller, MD

Clinical Appointments

  • Chief and Vice Chair for Laboratory Medicine
  • Medical Director, Clinical Microbiology & Molecular Diagnostics
    Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine
  • Medical Director, Laboratory Information Systems (2005-2011)

Academic appointment

  • Associate Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine

Contact information

email: nancy.miller@bmc.org
office: 617 638-8705, fax: 617-638-4556
Mail to:
1 Boston Medical Center Place
670 Albany Street – Suite 733
Boston, MA 02118

Education/Training

  • M.D., State University of New York at Stony Brook, School of Medicine
  • Internship and Residency, Anatomic & Clinical Pathology, The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
  • Post-doctoral fellowship, Medical Microbiology, The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions

Board certification

  • Diplomate, American Board of Pathology, Anatomic and Clinical Pathology

Membership & Offices in Professional Societies

  • 2014-2016          President, Northeast Branch – American Society for Microbiology (2 terms)
  • 2012-present     Member, Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP)
  • 2011-2014          Local Councilor, Northeast Branch – American Society for Microbiology
  • 2006-present    Member, Northeast Branch of ASM (NEB-ASM)
  • 2002-present    Fellow, College of American Pathologists (CAP)
  • 2002-present    Fellow, American Society of Clinical Pathologists (ASCP)
  • 1999-present     Member, American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

Selected Recent Professional Activity:

  • 2016-2018     Distinguished Lecturer, American Society for Microbiology Distinguished Lecturer Program
  • 2015-present     Member, Working Group: Protocol development for validation of endoscope culturing and reprocessing quality monitor, American Society for Microbiology (ASM), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
  • 2014-present     Member, Working Group: Evidence-based Laboratory Practice Guideline on C. difficile, joint effort by American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Laboratory Medicine Best Practice initiative
  • 2012     Expert panel member, The Culture-Independent Diagnostics Forum: Charting a Path for Public Health. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE)
  • 2008-2015     Contributor, Document Development Committee, User Verification/Validation of Microbial Identification and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Systems, M52 1st ed, 2015, Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI)
  • 2002-present     Spokesperson, College of American Pathologists (CAP), hometown radio & television interviews

Membership, Departmental and University Committees

  • 2010-present    Committee on Admissions, Boston University School of Medicine
  • 2007-present    Process Improvement Task Force, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Department of Pediatrics, Boston Medical Center

Membership, Hospital Committees, Boston Medical Center

  • 2015-present     C. difficile Quality Improvement Initiative, Department of Quality and Patient Safety, Boston Medical Center
  • 2004-present    Hospital Infection Control Committee
  • 2004-present    Pharmacy and Therapeutics Antibiotic Subcommittee

Research interests

My present focus is translational research as applied to innovative or improved diagnostics for microbiology and infectious diseases. As clinical co-investigator, I collaborate with several principal investigators from the BUMC and BU campuses. In addition, I am the PI for a variety of industry-related projects involved in developing and testing new diagnostic devices.

The BMC clinical Microbiology Laboratory supports various validations and method-comparison studies of interest to clinical microbiology.  The laboratory also supports a variety of BUMC faculty who are engaged in clinical research protocols. We actively seek collaboration for quality-improvement projects and clinical case reports.

Selected Publications

  • Miller NS. Commentary. Clin Chem. 2016 Jan; 62(1):40. PMID: 26719570.
  • Miller, N.S. and D.G. Remick. Clinical microbiology versus sepsis: At the diagnostic crossroads. Journal of Infectious Diseases and Therapeutics. Accepted for publication
  • Goldberg LJ, Wise EM, Miller NS. White piedra caused by Trichosporon inkin: a report of two cases in a northern climate. Br J Dermatol. 2015 Sep; 173(3):866-8. PMID: 25833005.
  • Peluso AM, Harnish BA, Miller NS, Cooper ER, Fujii AM. Effect of young sibling visitation on respiratory syncytial virus activity in a NICU. J Perinatol. 2015 Aug; 35(8):627-30. PMID: 25836315.
  • Valencia-Rey P, Weinberg J, Miller NS, Barlam TF. Coagulase-negative staphylococcal bloodstream infections: Does vancomycin remain appropriate empiric therapy? J Infect. 2015 Jul; 71(1):53-60. PMID: 25725152.
  • Taimur, S., N.S. Miller, D. Whitney, T. Barlam. Empiric and Targeted Treatment of Enterococcal Infections: Opportunities for Antimicrobial Stewardship. Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice. 2015; 23(2):72-75.
  • Gomez A, Miller NS, Smolina I. Visual detection of bacterial pathogens via PNA-based padlock probe assembly and isothermal amplification of DNAzymes. Anal Chem. 2014 Dec 16; 86(24):11992-8. PMID: 25415469.
  • Miller, N.S. Occupy Call Street? Reconsidering a microbiology critical action value policy. Clinical Microbiology Newsletter. 2014; 36(8):57-62.
  • Miller NS, Yen-Lieberman B, Poulter MD, Tang YW, Granato PA. Comparative clinical evaluation of the IsoAmp(®) HSV Assay with ELVIS(®) HSV culture/ID/typing test system for the detection of herpes simplex virus in genital and oral lesions. J Clin Virol. 2012 Aug; 54(4):355-8. PMID: 22613012.
  • Miller NS, Nader C, Barinaga J, Zarin J. Unsuspected infection with Listeria monocytogenes infection in a prosthetic knee joint. Clinical Microbiology Newsletter. 2011; 33(8):60-62.
  • Miller NS, Rogan D, Orr BL, Whitney D. Comparison of BD Bactec Plus blood culture media to VersaTREK Redox blood culture media for detection of bacterial pathogens in simulated adult blood cultures containing therapeutic concentrations of antibiotics. J Clin Microbiol. 2011 Apr; 49(4):1624-7. PMID: 21307220.
  • Holtzman C, Whitney D, Barlam T, Miller NS. Assessment of impact of peptide nucleic acid fluorescence in situ hybridization for rapid identification of coagulase-negative staphylococci in the absence of antimicrobial stewardship intervention. J Clin Microbiol. 2011 Apr; 49(4):1581-2. PMID: 21270213.
  • Kim HJ, Tong Y, Tang W, Quimson L, Cope VA, Pan X, Motre A, Kong R, Hong J, Kohn D, Miller NS, Poulter MD, Kong H, Tang YW, Yen-Lieberman B. A rapid and simple isothermal nucleic acid amplification test for detection of herpes simplex virus types 1 and 2. J Clin Virol. 2011 Jan; 50(1):26-30. PMID: 20947417.
  • Iroh Tam PY, Fisher MA, Miller NS. Corynebacterium falsenii bacteremia occurring in an infant on vancomycin therapy. J Clin Microbiol. 2010 Sep; 48(9):3440-2. PMID: 20610679.
  • Smolina I, Miller NS, Frank-Kamenetskii M. PNA-based microbial pathogen identification and resistance marker detection: an accurate, isothermal rapid assay based on genome-specific features. Artif DNA PNA XNA. 2010 1; 1(2):1-7. PMID: 20953307.