O.H. Frazier, M.D., is a professor in the Division of Cardiothoracic Transplantation and Circulatory Support in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. He also is co-director of the Center for Preclinical Surgical & Interventional Research at the Texas Heart Institute (THI). His academic appointments also include professor of Surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston and clinical professor of Surgery at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
For more than 50 years, Dr. Frazier has been a pioneer in the surgical treatment of severe heart failure and the fields of heart transplantation and artificial devices that may be used either to substitute for or to assist the pumping action of the human heart. As a result of his work, Baylor College of Medicine, Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center and the THI have emerged as one of the top transplantation and mechanical circulatory support programs worldwide.
Dr. Frazier has performed over 1,300 heart transplants and implanted more than 1,000 left ventricular assist devices (LVADs), more than any other surgeon in the world. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he performed experimental work toward developing an implantable LVAD. In 1986, Dr. Frazier performed the first implantation of such a device – the HeartMate I – in a human. His seminal work in the field of LVADs continued with experimental studies that resulted in the first intravascular, implantable continuous flow LVAD (Hemopump), which he first implanted in a human in April 1988. After more than 10 years of research, in 2000, he performed the first human implantation of the Jarvik 2000 LVAD. In November 2003, he implanted the first HeartMate II LVAD in a patient. In 2011, Dr. Frazier implanted the first successful continuous-flow total artificial heart, using two ventricular assist devices working in tandem to replace the patient’s failing heart. Dr. Frazier’s goal has always been to create an implantable total artificial heart that would obviate the problems of the current, less durable artificial hearts in current use. On July 9, 2024, he did just that. Following over a decade of research and experimentation in his research laboratory, Dr. Frazier’s team successfully implanted the BiVACOR total artificial heart in a patient with severe heart disease.
Dr. Frazier’s pioneering work in the field of circulatory support has resulted in more than 100,000 LVADs being implanted in patients worldwide as a life-saving effort; the designs of most of these devices have been conceived and/or developed in Dr. Frazier’s THI laboratory.
Dr. Frazier has received numerous honors. Most recently, Dr. Frazier received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation, the Scientific Achievement Award from the American Association for Thoracic Surgeons, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from ASAIO (formerly the American Society of Artificial Internal Organs).
