DOCTOR WORKS TO BRIDGE GAP IN TRANSPLANTS
25 April 2004 - University of Chicago

It is clear that the demand for treating diseases with organ transplants "is so great that, unless there's this huge change in regard to the availability of organs, we're not going to meet that demand," Millis says. "So I've been looking toward cellular therapies in ways to either change the course of disease . . . or find ways to bridge patients while they're waiting for transplants."

Millis' push to find innovative ways to address the nation's organ shortage is among reasons the Illinois chapter of the American Liver Foundation will honor him Tuesday with its annual Physician Recognition Award. The group's Web site notes Millis' "unparalleled success in the area of liver transplantation."

Millis, 44, has his genes to thank for some of that success. Besides his grandfather, whose medical tools and microscope are on display in Millis' office, his great-grandmother was a midwife in upstate New York, and his father, James, is a retired obstetrician/gynecologist in Nashville.

"When I was 16 or 17, I went in and watched him do a C-section," recalled Millis, who also learned medical basics working at a Nashville pharmacy in high school.

Millis majored in chemistry and political science at Emory University in Decatur, Ga., working summers at the Nashville hospital where his father worked. He eventually became a scrub assistant there, assisting surgeons in the operating room.

Entering medical school at the University of Tennessee, "I knew I wanted to be a surgeon, which is very unusual," Millis said. "In addition, I wanted to be a vascular surgeon, because that was the most complex [type of surgery]."

Millis' thoughts quickly turned to transplantation when he learned the university was developing the third active clinical transplant program in the United States. As a medical student in 1981, he got a federal grant to study organ transplantation. He also began helping perform liver transplants in dogs.

After graduating from medical school in 1985, Millis did his residency in surgery and became an instructor at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine. He came to the University of Chicago in 1994 and was named chief of transplant surgery of the institution's hospitals in July 2000.

Millis, who lives in Hinsdale with his wife and two children, has been a national leader in developing techniques for pediatric liver transplantation, especially from adults who become liver donors for children. He hopes his work with cellular therapy will be equally cutting edge.

In the short run, the university's new cellular and tissue processing facility is giving type-1 diabetics hope for less invasive treatment. Surgeons now usually perform dual kidney-pancreas transplants to stop diabetes.

U. of C. doctors can use their new lab to isolate islet cells from pancreases and extract them. From there, those cells can be injected into patients to fight the disease. The university is awaiting federal approval before treating people.

Eventually, doctors hope to use the facility to isolate cells to fight liver disease, and, years down the road, possibly cancer.

Despite the complexities of Millis' line of work, his patients say his personality matches his brain.

"Every single day that I was in either ICU and then a regular room, he made it his point to see me," said Ron Bronstein, 55, a Gurnee resident who had a liver transplant at U. of C. in November 2001. "He made it his business to see of all his patients personally.

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