Gundu Hirisave Rama Rao was born in Tumkur (Karnataka), India, on 23 August 1937. He is a scientist, entrepreneur and a tenured professor at the Academic Health Center, University of Minnesota. He and Professor John Eaton visited India in 1981 under a National Science Foundation sponsorship (travel grant), to explore opportunities for collaborative research projects. They visited medical institutions from Kashmir in the north to Trivandrum in the south. He again visited India during 1990-93, as a professor and a senior consultant for the government of India under a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) called TOKTEN (Transfer of Knowledge Through Expatriate Nationals) sponsored by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. He is a member of the Minneapolis University Rotary Clu