Areas of interest

Birth asphyxia Cerebral Palsy Fetal growth restriction (FGR) Preterm birth

Research group

Neurodevelopment and Neuroprotection

Biography

Professor Suzanne Miller is an ARC Future Fellow (2014-2017) and a member of The Ritchie Centre’s Fetal and Neonatal Research Theme. Professor Miller is a fetal physiologist, who leads the Neurodevelopment and Neuroprotection Research group.

Professor Miller undertook postdoctoral training in developmental neuroscience at University College London (UCL) with the Centre for Perinatal Brain Protection and Repair. She returned to Monash University in 2001, and in 2010 was recruited as a senior scientist and group leader to The Ritchie Centre.

Professor Miller has developed a comprehensive program of perinatal brain research, with established models of the principal causes of newborn brain injury – fetal growth restriction, intrauterine inflammation, preterm birth and birth asphyxia. Her group combines interrogation of the basic cellular pathways activated within the immature brain in response to common, but often devastating pregnancy or birth complications, and clinical application of therapies to prevent or repair newborn brain injury. This approach has led to the recent commencement of a world first human clinical trial at Monash Medical Centre to examine melatonin therapy to protect the developing brain in pregnancies compromised by fetal growth restriction and a trial to examine markers and protective strategies to address high rates of birth asphyxia in a low-resource (rural India) birth setting.

Professor Miller has been successful in securing more than $5 million in NMHRC grants and philanthropic or other foundation grants. The latter includes grants from the Cerebral Palsy Alliance and a highly competitive start-up grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges that is funding work in India. In November 2013, Prof Miller was awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, the only successful Future Fellowship in the field of Paediatrics and Reproductive Medicine. She has also recently been awarded a prestigious Career Development Grant from the Cerebral Palsy Alliance of Australia.