President: The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
President-Elect and Medical Director: Texas Heart Institute
Dr. James T. Willerson was born in Lampasas, Texas, and is the President of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston where he is the Alkek-Williams Distinguished Professor and holds the Edward Randall III Chair in Internal Medicine. In October 2004, Dr. Willerson was named President-Elect of the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, Texas. He holds the Dunn Chair in Cardiology Research and the John O’Quinn Chair named the “James T. Willerson Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Research,” both at the Texas Heart Institute, Houston, Texas. From 1989 through 2000, he was the Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston where an Annual Lectureship has been established in his name. During this same period, he served as the Chief of Medical Services at Memorial Hermann Hospital. He is also the Medical Director, Director of Cardiovascular Research, and Co-Director of the Cullen Cardiovascular Research Laboratories at the Texas Heart Institute. He is an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Dr. Willerson is a graduate of the Texas Military Institute in San Antonio, Texas, where he was the Battalion Commander, President of the Senior Class, Editor of the school newspaper, and a state swimming champion. He attended The University of Texas in Austin, graduating as a Phi Beta Kappa, member of the Texas Cowboys, and where he lettered for three years in varsity swimming. Upon graduating as a member of Alpha Omega Alpha from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, he completed his medical and cardiology training as an intern, resident, and research and clinical fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and as a Clinical Associate at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
He is the former Chairman of the National American Heart Association Research Committee and of the Cardiovascular and Renal Study Section of the National Institutes of Health. He has received the Award of Merit from the American Heart Association and has served as a member of the Board of Directors and Steering Committee of the National American Heart Association. Before coming to The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Dr. Willerson was Professor of Medicine and Director of the Cardiology Division at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas, and Director and Principal Investigator of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Specialized Center of Research under a major grant from the NIH. Upon his departure, the "James T. Willerson, M.D. Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Diseases" was established at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.
Dr. Willerson has served as visiting professor and invited lecturer at more than 220 institutions worldwide. He has received numerous national and international awards, including the "James B. Herrick Award" from the American Heart Association in 1993; the American College of Cardiology’s Distinguished Scientist Award in 2000; the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Scientific Councils of the American Heart Association in 2002; and the American Heart Association’s Distinguished Scientist Award in 2003. He was the recipient of the Gold Heart Award, the American Heart Association’s highest award in April 2005. He has been elected a Fellow in the Royal Society of Medicine of the United Kingdom and made an Honorary Member of the Societies of Cardiology in Peru in 1994 and in Spain in 1996, the Hellenic Society of Cardiology in Greece in 1997, the Society of Cardiology of Venezuela in 2000, and the Chilean Society of Cardiology in 2004. He is a member and past President of the Paul Dudley White Cardiology Society at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. In June of 2004, Dr. Willerson received the Medal of Merit for Distinguished Achievements in Cardiovascular Sciences by the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences. In 2005, he received the “Lifetime Achievement Award” presented at the 17th Annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics Scientific Symposium on behalf of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in Washington, DC. In 2006, Dr. Willerson received the Libin Award in Cardiovascular Research in Alberta, Canada; the “Living Legend Award” for achievement in cardiovascular research from the 16th World Congress of the World Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons in Ottawa, Canada, and the “Most Outstanding Cardiologist, 2006” award from the Cardiovascular Society and Medical School of Shanghai, China.
He has served on many editorial boards for professional publications: The New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Circulation, Circulation Research, Arteriosclerosis and Thrombosis, American Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, American Journal of Cardiology, American Heart Journal, and Cardiovascular Medicine. From 1993 to 2004, he was the longest-serving Editor of Circulation, the major publication of the American Heart Association. In 1998, the monthly journal was converted to a weekly publication and attained the highest Impact Factor of any cardiology journal in the world. He has edited or co-edited twenty-four textbooks, including the Third Edition of Cardiovascular Medicine which was released in February of 2007. Additionally, he has published more than 850 scientific articles.
He has been elected to membership in numerous professional societies, including the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the Association of Professors of Medicine, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He was named a Distinguished Alumnus by the Baylor College of Medicine in 1998 and a Distinguished Alumnus of The University of Texas at Austin in 1999.
His recent research work has concentrated on elucidating mechanisms responsible for the conversion from stable to unstable coronary heart disease syndromes, the prevention of unstable angina and acute myocardial infarction, the detection and treatment of unstable atherosclerotic plaques, and the discovery of the genes and abnormal proteins responsible for cardiovascular disease. In 2001, he and his colleagues at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston and at the Hospital Procardico in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, began bone marrow-derived stem cell transplantation directly into the hearts of patients with severe heart failure. He and his colleagues have demonstrated objective and subjective evidence of clinical improvement, enhanced blood flow, and improved contractile function in the hearts of these patients. In May 2004, the work was expanded to the Texas Heart Institute and St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in Houston, Texas, and represents the first FDA-approved trial of its kind in the United States.
Upon moving to Houston in 1989, Dr. Willerson created the Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases, a basic and clinical research effort devoted to the discovery of genes and proteins that cause the human diseases of our time. It is his strong conviction that from these discoveries will come the knowledge to predict, prevent, and cure heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, aneurysms, heart attacks, and the deleterious effects of aging. The Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM) has made great progress in the discovery of very important genes. Dr. Willerson also founded TexGen Research, a collaboration which brings together all of the institutions in the Texas Medical Center to collect blood samples necessary for the discovery of those genes and proteins that play a key role in causing the major diseases of our time. With TexGen, each Texas Medical Center institution obtains blood samples from patients who have a personal or family history of cardiovascular disease, stroke, dementia, or selected cancers and who are admitted to their hospitals. Great progress is being made by this collaborative biomedical research effort.
Dr. Willerson and his colleagues have received thirteen patents related to their work in coronary heart disease and detecting vulnerable plaques. Dr. Willerson has been a founder of two biotechnology companies that are now traded publicly, Encysive and Volcano.
Finally, Dr. Willerson has been recognized as an “Outstanding Teacher” at both The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas and The University of Texas Medical School at Houston and as one of the most outstanding cardiologists in Texas and the United States in numerous publications and by both local and national organizations.
