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James T. Willerson, M.D., president of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, is an internationally distinguished cardiologist, research scientist and educator. Appointed the fourth president of the UT Health Science Center at Houston by The University of Texas System Board of Regents on March 9, 2001, he continues an active medical practice in addition to his administrative duties.
In the fall of 2004, Dr. Willerson was named president-elect of the Texas Heart Institute. On Sept. 26, 2007 he announced that he will step down as president of the UT Health Science Center at Houston as soon as a successor is in place, so he can focus on his leadership duties at Texas Heart Institute. The UT Board of Regents is launching a search for a new president.
Dr. Willerson is a native of Lampasas, Texas, the son of two physicians – his father was a general practitioner and his mother, an anesthesiologist. He attended The University of Texas at Austin on a swimming scholarship and lettered his sophomore, junior and senior years. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and received the UT Academic Award as the athlete with the highest scholastic average.
He entered Baylor College of Medicine, graduating with honors in 1965. He completed his residency and fellowship training at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Willerson returned to Texas in 1972 and joined the faculty at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.
In 1989 Dr. Willerson came to Houston as chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at the UT Medical School, the position he held until his appointment as president of the health science center. During this tenure, he led the way in creating what is now known as the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases. Dr. Willerson set new fund-raising records for the UT Health Science Center through the New Frontiers campaign, which raised more than $235 million for the new Fayez S. Sarofim Research Building (home of the IMM) and for the recruitment of "world's best" scientists in several disciplines. During his time as president, Willerson also has led efforts to recover from the financial and physical impact of Tropical Storm Allison, construct a new building for the UT School of Nursing at Houston, purchase a clinic building, break ground on a $161.5-million Research Park Complex and complete the medical school’s Replacement Research Facility, which is set to open in December 2007.
Today, Dr. Willerson remains an active clinician, researcher and educator. Holder of the Edward Randall III Chair in Internal Medicine and the Alkek/Williams Distinguished Professorship, Dr. Willerson is a prolific writer who has edited or co-edited 24 textbooks and published over 862 scientific articles. From 1993-2004 he served as Editor-in-Chief of Circulation, the American Heart Association's largest scientific journal, and he has been recognized internationally for a lifetime of exceptional accomplishments in cardiology.
His current research interests include the use of stem cells to improve severely damaged heart tissue. Dr. Willerson and colleagues at the Texas Heart Institute now lead one of the first FDA-approved clinical trials to treat patients with end-stage heart disease using their own bone marrow-derived stem cells.
Date Modified: 09/2007
