Our Approach
EVIDENCE → INFERENCE → CARE
Building Better Inference for Better Care
We study how evidence becomes knowledge, and how knowledge becomes better care.
Why inference matters
Medicine does not act on evidence alone. It acts on what clinicians, researchers, guideline panels, journals, regulators, and patients infer from evidence.
Those inferences shape decisions: whether to adopt a new therapy, repeat a study, trust a biomarker, intensify treatment, de-escalate care, or change practice. When inference is unclear, biased, or overstated, patients can be harmed. When inference is rigorous, transparent, and appropriately humble, evidence becomes more useful.
Better inference is the bridge between better evidence and better care.
Evidence becomes knowledge through inference
Scientific progress depends on more than new data. It depends on how carefully we ask questions, how rigorously we test ideas, how openly we acknowledge uncertainty, and how thoughtfully we translate evidence into care.
No single study establishes reliable knowledge. Reliable knowledge emerges through an iterative process of experimentation, criticism, replication, synthesis, and continual refinement.
How we study inference
The Miller Lab uses skin cancer as a model system to improve how medicine learns. Our work spans the full pathway from clinical observation to evidence generation, evidence interpretation, and patient-centered decision-making.
Clinical trials
We design and conduct clinical trials that ask practical, patient-centered questions in skin cancer. Our goal is not simply to test new therapies, but to generate evidence that can meaningfully improve clinical decisions.
Evidence synthesis
We examine how findings from individual studies become broader claims about treatment benefit, risk, uncertainty, and standard practice. We are especially interested in how evidence is interpreted when data are incomplete, heterogeneous, or evolving.
Open inference
We develop tools, frameworks, and research practices that make the analytic and interpretive context of evidence more visible. This includes attention to study design, statistical assumptions, reproducibility, bias, uncertainty, and the range of defensible conclusions.
Applications to patient care
Evidence has value only when it improves decisions for patients. Our work emphasizes thoughtful translation of research findings into care, with attention to uncertainty, tradeoffs, clinical context, and patient-centered outcomes.
Building knowledge infrastructure
The Miller Lab’s mission extends beyond individual studies. We also build the forums, journals, and collaborative spaces through which evidence is discussed, criticized, refined, and translated into better care.
Dr. Miller founded the Society of Cutaneous Oncology and the Journal of Cutaneous Oncology as part of a broader effort to strengthen the intellectual infrastructure of skin cancer care. These initiatives reflect a central idea of the lab: medicine advances not only by generating evidence, but by improving how evidence is interpreted.
Society of Cutaneous Oncology
The Society of Cutaneous Oncology brings together clinicians, investigators, surgeons, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, dermatologists, pathologists, trainees, and other stakeholders committed to improving skin cancer care.
SoCO creates space for scientific dialogue, evidence interpretation, education, and collaboration across disciplines.
Journal of Cutaneous Oncology
The Journal of Cutaneous Oncology provides a dedicated platform for work at the intersection of skin cancer research, clinical care, evidence synthesis, and scientific interpretation.
JoCO supports the broader mission of making cutaneous oncology a more coherent, rigorous, and collaborative academic field.
Clinical trials generate evidence. Societies and journals help determine how evidence is examined, debated, refined, and ultimately used.
An Ecology of Knowledge
Scientific progress depends on an ecosystem rather than any individual investigator, study, method, or institution.
Clinical observations generate hypotheses. Clinical trials test them. Statistics quantify uncertainty. Replication challenges conclusions. Evidence synthesis clarifies patterns. Scientific dialogue refines interpretation. Clinical judgment translates knowledge into decisions.
Together, these processes produce knowledge that is stronger than any one component alone.
Our laboratory studies skin cancer, but our broader mission is to improve the scientific processes through which medicine learns. We believe that better questions, better evidence, and better inference ultimately lead to better decisions for patients.