NYITCOM’s Rajagopalan Elected Fellow of the American Heart Association

Jonesboro, AR – Vishwa Rajagopalan, Ph.D., an associate professor of biomedical and anatomical sciences at New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University, has been elected a Fellow of the American Heart Association.

According to the AHA, fellowship recognizes and awards premium professional members for excellence, innovative, and sustained contributions in the areas of scholarship, practice and/or education, and volunteer service within the AHA/ASA. Fellowship is conferred by the Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences.

AHA Fellowships are awarded to physicians, scientists, and other healthcare professionals with a particularly productive career in advancing the treatment of cardiovascular diseases and stroke.

“We are incredibly proud of Dr. Rajagopalan for this well-deserved honor,” said Dr. Shane Speights, dean of NYITCOM at A-State. “Dr. Rajagopalan is an invaluable asset to our institution as an educator, researcher, and student mentor, and his dedication to cardiovascular research makes him an ideal recipient of AHA fellowship.”

Rajagopalan’s research focuses on roles of noncoding RNAs in cardiovascular, thyroid, and associated disorders. He has been awarded two grants through the AHA’s Institutional Research Enhancement Award initiative, the association’s equivalent of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) R15 award, to study cardiovascular dysfunction.

Following his tenure as a healthcare professional, Rajagopalan moved to the United States for advanced training in cardiovascular sciences. After completing his doctoral studies in molecular and translational aspects of physiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, he began postdoctoral work at the Stanford University Medical Center, which is known for groundbreaking contributions to human heart transplantation.

About NYITCOM at Arkansas State University: New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University, located on A-State’s Jonesboro campus, is dedicated to improving access to health care for the underserved and rural populations in Arkansas and the Mississippi Delta Region. Arkansas ranks 48th in overall population health status due to low health indicators including obesity and number of adults who smoke. The state also ranks 46th in the number of active physicians per capita and 39th in the number of primary care physicians. NYITCOM at A-State was established in 2016 with the mission of meeting the need for more physicians in this medically underserved area.