Gundu H. R. Rao obtained his B.Sc degree from the University of Mysore and B.Sc (Hons) and M.Sc., degrees from the Poona University. He worked for an year with the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, Bangalore and five years at the Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore. He immigrated to the USA in 1965 and specialized in grain storage technology and obtained his Ph.D degree from the Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas. After working as a post- doctoral fellow at the Texas A& M University and University of Minnesota, he joined department of Pharmacology as an NIH fellow to get training in toxicology. He has been with the University of Minnesota Medical School for over 40 years. He is a naturalized US citizen and a tenured professor in the department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology. He also has faculty appointments in Anesthesiology, Lillehei Heart Institute, and Biomedical Engineering Institute. He is an author or co- author of over 300 publications in the field of interest (thrombosis and stroke). In the past, he has consulted various medical device development companies in the Twin Cities including 3M, Medtronic Inc, St Jude Medical, Medical CV Inc, Vascular Solutions, APP Tech, Endocardial Solutions, PlaCor Inc., Medical Innovations Inc, Hypertension Diagnostics Inc. and Boston Scientific on problems related to biocompatibility, thrombosis and stroke.

He is currently listed as the Senior Fulbright Specialist. He started a society (South Asian Society on Atherosclerosis and Thrombosis, SASAT) to create awareness on vascular diseases in 1993. Since then he is organizing international symposiums on Atherosclerosis and Thrombosis in India, every other year.