Wells is a board-certified surgeon and expert in thyroid cancer. Currently a Professor of Surgery at Washington University and Executive Director of the International Thyroid Oncology Group, Wells divides his time between St. Louis and Bethesda. With CCR colleagues, he has opened a new pediatric clinical study of hereditary medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). This inaugural trial of the new thyroid program will assess the safety, tolerance, and activity of vandetanib in children and adolescents with hereditary MTC. He is a longstanding member of the Institute of Medicine and has received 13 major scientific awards, including the American Surgical Association Medallion for Scientific Achievement (2004). An honorary fellow in six international surgical colleges, he has also been president of seven major surgical societies, editor-in-chief of three major journals, and author or coauthor of over 250 peer-reviewed articles and 70 book chapters. From 1998–2005, he chaired the Oncology Group of the American College of Surgeons.