Five Indian-Origin Experts Elected to US National Academy of Medicine for Contributions to Health and Science

Five Indian-origin experts working across public health, healthcare policy, cardiovascular genetics, biomedical engineering and neuroscience have been elected to the US National Academy of Medicine. Their recognition highlights the breadth of Indian-origin contributions to American medical research and healthcare—and the growing importance of translating scientific discoveries into better treatments, fairer health systems and improved patient outcomes.

Five Indian-origin experts have earned one of the United States’ most distinguished recognitions in health and medicine, joining the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) as members for 2026.

The honourees are Kasisomayajula “Vish” Viswanath of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Meena Seshamani, secretary of the Maryland Department of Health; Kiran Musunuru of the University of Pennsylvania; Ashutosh Chilkoti of Duke University; and Vikaas Singh Sohal of the University of California, San Francisco.

Their work spans different parts of the healthcare system. Viswanath studies health communication and inequities; Seshamani has helped shape healthcare policy and payment reform; Musunuru investigates cardiovascular genetics and gene-editing treatments; Chilkoti develops technologies for drug delivery and diagnostics; and Sohal studies how brain activity relates to mood, anxiety and cognition.

The National Academy of Medicine announced its 2026 elections on 19 October, naming 100 new members—90 regular members and 10 international members. Election is based on significant contributions to medical science, healthcare and public health, alongside a commitment to service. The five experts are among the newly elected regular members.

Their recognition matters beyond professional prestige. Together, their work illustrates how progress in medicine depends on more than laboratory discoveries: it also requires effective communication, affordable access to treatment, reliable diagnostics and a deeper understanding of the human brain.

Vish Viswanath: Making health information work for everyone

Kasisomayajula “Vish” Viswanath, the Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, also holds an affiliation with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

His research focuses on how people encounter, understand and use health information—and why some communities face greater barriers than others.

Access to medical information is not simply a question of whether reliable advice exists. Language, education, income, digital access, cultural context and trust in institutions can influence whether people receive that information and act on it.

These differences can have significant consequences. Public-health campaigns may fail to reach people who need them most, while misinformation can spread rapidly through communities with limited access to trusted sources. Communication strategies that overlook these factors risk reinforcing existing health inequalities.

Viswanath’s work has helped establish health communication and communication-related inequities as important areas of public-health research. The Academy recognised his contributions to translational communication science and health inequities, which have influenced scholarship and public-health practice.

For increasingly diverse societies, his research offers a practical lesson: healthcare systems must consider not only what scientific evidence says, but also how that evidence reaches different populations.

Meena Seshamani: Connecting healthcare policy with affordability

Meena Seshamani, secretary of the Maryland Department of Health, brings a policy and health-system perspective to the newly elected group.

Her work has included healthcare payment reform, prescription-drug affordability, Medicare policy and efforts to expand access to health services.

These issues are central to a longstanding challenge in American healthcare: medical advances can improve treatment, but their benefits may remain out of reach if patients cannot afford medicines or obtain appropriate care.

Payment systems influence how hospitals, doctors and other providers are reimbursed. The design of those systems can affect incentives, the organisation of care and the financial burden on patients. Prescription-drug affordability is equally consequential for people who depend on continuing treatment for chronic or serious conditions.

The Academy recognised Seshamani for work that has contributed to Medicare and public health, including payment reform, drug affordability, rural and women’s health services, and vaccine access.

Her election highlights a dimension of medical progress that is sometimes overlooked in stories about scientific breakthroughs: healthcare policy helps determine whether discoveries translate into accessible services.

Kiran Musunuru: Bringing gene editing closer to cardiovascular treatment

At the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, Kiran Musunuru researches cardiovascular genetics and the development of genetic therapies.

Cardiovascular disease remains a major global health challenge. Although conventional treatments—including medicines, lifestyle interventions and surgical procedures—have improved outcomes, researchers continue to investigate ways to address biological mechanisms that contribute to disease risk.

Musunuru’s work includes identifying genes and mechanisms associated with cardiovascular conditions and developing approaches that use gene editing to alter disease-related biology.

Gene editing offers the possibility of making targeted changes to genetic material. In principle, this could enable treatments that address an underlying mechanism rather than repeatedly managing its consequences. However, such approaches also require careful assessment of safety, effectiveness, durability and potential unintended effects.

The National Academy of Medicine cited Musunuru’s discoveries in cardiovascular genetics and his pioneering work in somatic gene-editing therapies. Its recognition includes contributions to therapeutic base editing in human patients and the development of an individualised gene-editing treatment.

These achievements are part of a wider movement towards precision medicine, in which treatments are designed around specific biological mechanisms. The challenge ahead is to establish which approaches can deliver lasting clinical benefits and how they might eventually become accessible beyond specialised research settings.

Ashutosh Chilkoti: Improving how medicines are delivered

Ashutosh Chilkoti, the Alan L. Kaganov Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University, works at the intersection of engineering, biology and medicine.

His research has focused on technologies that can improve the delivery of medicines, simplify the purification of biological products and support clinical diagnostics.

Drug delivery is a critical part of treatment design. A medicine’s effectiveness can depend not only on its active ingredient but also on how long it remains in the body, where it reaches and how it interacts with biological systems.

Chilkoti’s research has included engineered polypeptides designed for sustained delivery of protein drugs, methods for purifying protein drugs and viral vectors without chromatography, and innovations in point-of-care diagnostics.

The Academy recognised these contributions, including his work on advanced technologies for delivering biological medicines.

Such research has implications across several areas of healthcare. More effective drug-delivery systems could help improve treatment performance, while accessible diagnostic technologies may support earlier detection or more practical testing. The eventual benefits depend on clinical validation, manufacturing feasibility, regulatory assessment and affordability.

Chilkoti’s election underscores the role of biomedical engineering in turning scientific knowledge into tools that clinicians can use.

Vikaas Singh Sohal: Understanding the brain’s changing activity

Vikaas Singh Sohal, a professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, studies the neural circuits and patterns of brain activity associated with mood, anxiety and cognition.

The brain’s electrical activity is dynamic. Groups of neurons communicate through patterns that change over time, and researchers are investigating how these patterns relate to mental states and behaviour.

Sohal’s work has contributed to understanding how rhythmic brain activity tracks and influences mood and anxiety in real time, and how these patterns may be targeted to improve cognition in conditions such as schizophrenia.

This research is important because psychiatric and neurological conditions can involve complex interactions among brain circuits, behaviour and environmental influences. Better understanding of those mechanisms may help researchers identify more precise approaches to treatment.

The Academy cited Sohal’s contributions to understanding brain rhythms, their relationship with mood and anxiety, and their potential relevance to cognition.

The findings do not mean that every mental-health condition can be explained by a single brain signal or treated through one intervention. Rather, the research contributes to a larger effort to understand the biological processes involved and to develop treatments grounded in stronger evidence.

What the recognition means for the Indian diaspora

The five elections illustrate the range of professional contributions made by Indian-origin experts working in the United States. Their careers span academic research, public administration, engineering and clinical science—fields that increasingly intersect in modern healthcare.

Their achievement also highlights the international character of scientific progress. Medical knowledge develops through institutions, collaborations and professional networks that extend across national borders. Researchers trained or connected to different educational and cultural environments can contribute to the same global body of evidence.

For younger members of the Indian diaspora, the five honourees provide examples of distinct routes into influential work. Public health requires expertise in communication and population needs; health policy demands an understanding of institutions and financing; biomedical engineering combines technical design with biological knowledge; genetics links molecular discoveries to treatment development; and neuroscience investigates the mechanisms underlying thought, mood and behaviour.

The broader lesson is that healthcare innovation is not limited to inventing a new drug or conducting a successful clinical trial. Improving outcomes may also require making health information more useful, ensuring that treatment is affordable, designing better delivery systems or developing a more precise understanding of disease.

NAM membership is an honour, not a guarantee that every research approach will succeed or that every policy recommendation will be adopted. Its significance lies in the Academy’s recognition of contributions that have helped advance medicine, healthcare and public health.

For these five experts, the election acknowledges work across a remarkably broad scientific and institutional landscape. For the communities that may ultimately benefit from that work, the more important measure will be whether discoveries and insights continue to translate into better health, fairer access and more effective care.