In Remembrance: Orlando J. Miller ’46, ’50MD Died on November 3 2024

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Orlando Jack Miller ’46, ’50MD, died after a short illness on November 3, 2024, surrounded by family at a hospice center in Northern Virginia. 

After completing his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Yale, Jack chose to focus on research in medical genetics. He trained with Lionel Penrose at the Galton Laboratory in University College, London. He spent 26 years at Columbia University, where he became professor of obstetrics and gynecology and of human genetics and development. He carried out studies on chromosome organization, evolution, and gene content, in addition to clinical studies focused on identifying causes of infertility and mental retardation. Jack also taught medical genetics and served on the editorial boards of nine scientific journals, including Cytogenetics & Cell Genetics, Human Genetics, Genomics, and Chromosome Research and on research grant committees. He was the second president of the American Board of Medical Genetics, and was a member of the first genome study section of the National Institutes of Health. After leaving Columbia, he served as founding chairman of molecular biology and genetics at Wayne State University School of Medicine, where he spent 11 years. Jack published more than 250 scientific papers, many in leading journals such as Science, Nature, and Cell, and he cowrote the fourth edition of Human Chromosomes. He traveled extensively professionally, including sabbaticals in Oxford with Henry Harris, Edinburgh with Adrian Bird, and Melbourne with Jenny Graves, as well as international conferences throughout the world. He is listed in Marquis Who’s Who.

Jack was the first to use Caspersson’s quinacrine fluorescence banding technique to study the chromosomes of mice, and he identified his best research project as the discovery that each chromosome pair showed a distinctive banding pattern, making it possible for the first time to identify individual mouse chromosomes. This work opened the door to the development of mouse models of human diseases.

Jack and his wife Anne (Sandy) did research together until their retirement in 1996. They traveled widely, visiting more than 45 countries on all seven continents, and enjoyed conducting genealogical research excursions at home and abroad. They lived in Lansdowne Woods, Leesburg, Virginia, for 19 years.

Jack is survived by his wife of 70 years, Anne (Smith) Miller ’57PhD; their three children, Richard ’78 (Kristal), Cynthia ’80 (Matt ’80), and Karen; and seven grandchildren.

—Submitted by the family.