Billy Cohn

William E. Cohn, MD, is a Vice President of Medical Devices at Johnson&Johnson and the Director for the Johnson&Johnson Center for Device Innovation at the Texas Medical Center. He is also a professor of surgery at Baylor College of Medicine and an adjunct professor of Bioengineering at both Rice University and the University of Houston.

Prior to joining J&J, Dr. Cohn was the director of the Cullen Cardiovascular Research Lab at the famed Texas Heart Institute and the Director of Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery at THI. A native of Houston, Dr. Cohn received his medical school education, general surgical training, and cardiothoracic surgical training at Baylor College of Medicine where he served as the last chief resident of the legendary heart surgeon Michael E. DeBakey. After graduation, Dr. Cohn spent eleven years on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and as an Attending Cardiothoracic Surgeon at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

His major research interests include the development of new technology for decreasing the invasiveness of cardiac and vascular surgery and development of the continuous-flow totally implantable artificial heart. In 2011, Dr. Cohn and Dr. O. H. Frazier successfully implanted the first pulseless total heart replacement device in a human patient.

Dr. Cohn has a passion for medical device development and has more than 90 US patents granted or pending and another 60 international patents for his medical innovations

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