John Edward Tyson Distinguished Professor of Medicine & Public Health and Vice President for Biotechnology

The University of Texas Health & Science Center at Houston

Samuel Ward Casscells, III was born March 18, 1952 in Wilmington, DE. He received his B.S. in biology at Yale in 1974. He graduated from Harvard Medical School magna cum laude in 1979 and won the Reznick Prize for his research with Nobel Laureate Bernard Lown, M.D. His internship in medicine was at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, and during that time his outpatient training was at Harvard Community Health Plan. He passed the board examination in internal medicine in 1982. He then completed a cardiology fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, which included clinical epidemiology training at the Harvard School of Public Health. He passed the board examination in cardiovascular disease in 1985. After that, Dr. Casscells spent six years in the Cardiology Branch at the National Institutes of Health, followed by a sabbatical year at Scripps Institutes of Medicine and Science in La Jolla, California working under Nobel Laureate Roger Guillemin, M.D., and Ph.D.

Dr. Casscells came to Houston in 1992. From 1994 to 2000 he served as the Levy Professor and Chief of Cardiology at UT-Houston Medical School and Hermann (now Memorial Hermann) Hospital and as the Associate Director for Cardiology Research at the Texas Heart Institute/St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital. Dr. Casscells established the President Bush Center for Cardiovascular Health in 1997. In November 2000 he was awarded the John Edward Tyson Distinguished Professorship of Medicine, and in 2001 was named Vice President for Biotechnology, and in May 2002 was also named Professor of Public Health. Dr. Casscells is primarily involved in patient care, teaching and research on vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque (detection and prevention of heart attack and stroke) with James T. Willerson. He is known for his work in cardiovascular growth factors, web-based health education, and the costs and policy implications of new technologies.

Dr. Casscells serves on the editorial boards of Circulation, The American Journal of Cardiology, The Texas Heart Institute Journal, The Lifetime Health Letter, The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine and The Journal of Vascular Medicine and Biology. He was a co-founder of Selective Genetics, Intelligent Diagnostics, Volcano Therapeutics, LifeSentry, and is a consultant for the FDA and U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command.

A member of the American Heart Association, Dr. Casscells has served since 1992 on its Board of Directors or Advisory Board in Houston. He was President of the Houston Cardiology Society from 1995 to 1996. Dr. Casscells has also served on the boards of the Society of Vascular Medicine, the Association of Professors of Cardiology, and the University of Houston Law School's Institute of Health Law and Policy. Since 1996 Dr. Casscells has been listed in Who's Who in Medicine, in Science and Engineering,... in Education,... in America, and ... Who's Who in the World. In 1997 he was elected to the Association of University Cardiologists, and in 2000 to the American Clinical and Climatological Association. In January 2001 Dr. Casscells was appointed to President Bush's Healthcare Advisory Committee. In 2001, he received the first Harvard/MIT CIMIT Award, A Hero of the Flood Award from Memorial Hermann Hospital, and the Commandant's Medal from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. He also serves on the board of CaPCURE, and on the Mayor's Medical Advisory Committee, the Governor's Coordinating Council and Health and Bioterrorism, the Texas Medical Associations' Task Force on Bioterrorism, a terrorism task force of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Houston Task Force on Terrorism. Dr. Casscells also chairs Defense of Houston, which received a Best Practice award from the US Department of Health and Human Services, and directs the U.S. Army's DREAMS (Disaster Relief and Emergency Medical Services) Program, and Texas Training and Technology for Trauma and Terrorism.

He and his wife Roxanne Bell Casscells, a political consultant, have three children.