More than 80 leaders from USF, Tampa General Hospital and the Tampa Bay business community gathered May 3 to celebrate the appointment of Samuel A. Wickline, MD, as the first TGH Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine.

The event, held at USF Health CAMLS, also served to recognize Wickline’s appointment as the founding director of the USF Health Heart Institute, a key component of the new USF expansion of the Morsani College of Medicine into downtown Tampa.

USF President Judy Genshaft, Heart Institute Director and TGH Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine Samuel Wickline,  MD, TGH Acting President and CEO Steve Short, TGH Board Chair John Brabson, and USF Health Senior Vice President and Morsani College of Medicine Dean Charles Lockwood, MD, pose alongside two commemorative vases commissioned to honor the occasion.

Dr. Wickline outlined his vision for the Heart Institute, listing a number of research opportunities for ending cardiovascular diseases: growing new heart tissue and blood vessels to fight heart failure and atherosclerosis, nanomedicine to provide safer blood clotting therapies, biomedical engineering to open up blood vessels without metal stents, and bioinformatics to predict disease and improve treatment options for patients.

“We want to make a difference in patients’ lives really soon by putting basic science to work,” said Dr. Wickline. “With the energy in Tampa, we’re interested in entrepreneurship that pushes ideas from the bench to the patient’s bedside.”

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For more on Dr. Wickline’s research, click here.

Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Communications