​Salim S. Virani​

Vice Provost, Research

Salim S. Virani, MD, PhD, serves as the Vice Provost Research and the Nizar E. Noor Mohammed Mewawalla Endowed Professor at the Aga Khan University (AKU). Effective September 2024, Dr Virani took on additional responsibilities for Bilateral and Multilateral Relations at AKU. 

Working with a dedicated team, he leads and facilitates AKU's global research and international collaborations across South Asia, Europe, and East Africa in the areas of medicine, nursing, education, culture, media, climate change, and environmental sciences. Apart from making research admin processes fully electronic and global, his research admin team has initiated several innovative programmes to improve research capacity for early career researchers [e.g. Research Initiative for Scholars Excellence (RISE) Programme] and to improve research administration [e.g., Skills & Training for Research Innovation, Development & Excellence (STRIDE) Virtual Learning Environment, and Community of Practice]. 

Before joining AKU, Dr Virani was a tenured Professor in the Sections of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Research at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and an investigator in the Health Policy, Quality, and Informatics Programme at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Centre Health Services Research and Development Centre of Innovation in Houston, Texas.  At BCM, he also served as the Director for the Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Training Programme. His clinical practice includes being a Preventive Cardiologist with a special emphasis on managing complex dyslipidemia. 

Dr Virani earned his medical degree from the AKU in Pakistan, graduating with the Best Medical Graduate Award. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Miami, where he received an award as the Best Resident. He then completed a Cardiology fellowship at the Texas Heart Institute, where he served as the Chief Cardiology Fellow and received the ‘Tauber Award for the Outstanding Graduating Fellow’. 

Dr Virani's research portfolio aims to understand the pathophysiology and epidemiology of atherosclerosis with a special emphasis on South Asians. Working with a team, he is currently developing a first-of-its-kind longitudinal cohort of adolescents and young adults in Pakistan (LIFECARD), which will study the impact of traditional and novel risk factors (climate change, built environment, and genomics) on the development of cardiometabolic disorders. Via funded research grants from the Department of Veterans Affairs, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association (AHA), National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the World Heart Federation, his team has evaluated models of delivery of cardiovascular disease preventive care, how to leverage machine learning while using ‘big data’, and how point-of-care informatics-driven interventions can improve guideline-concordant care delivery. 

He has authored or co-authored more than 800 peer-reviewed publications or book chapters (several with his mentees) related to various aspects of cardiovascular disease prevention including cholesterol, blood pressure control and aspirin therapy, with several in high-impact journals.  This work has received 180,000+ citations. He has been recognised as ‘World Expert’ in Cholesterol by Expertscape (top 0.01% of scholars writing about cholesterol from 2013-2023 among 194,955 published authors) and among the top 2% of the most cited scientists worldwide by Stanford Rankings in both the single-year and career-long impact lists. He is also among the top 10 researchers in Pakistan based on the Stanford Rankings. Dr Virani has served as a faculty for more than 60 online literary educational programmes and has participated in 200+ online or in-person media interviews. He has made upwards of 300 invited presentations at various conferences and academic institutions worldwide. 

Dr Virani has been a recipient of the Scott Grundy Award for Excellence in Lipids Metabolism Research from the AHA, the Jeremiah Stamler Distinguished Young Investigator Research Award, Leadership Award from the American College of Cardiology (ACC) NCDR® Oversight Committee, National Lipid Association (NLA) President's Service Award, and the Clark Faculty Service Award at BCM for exemplary professionalism and community service. 

Dr Virani served as the Chair for the ACC's Global Non-Communicable Diseases Academy and the ACC International's Global Quality Solutions Work group. He also served as an At-Large Board Member for the Southwest Chapter of the NLA and as a member on the ACC's Science and Quality Committee. In the recent past, he served as the Chair for the AHA's Cardiovascular Disease Statistics Committee, Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease Section of the ACC, and the Research and Publications Committee of the ACC's PINNACLE Registry (the largest outpatient cardiovascular disease registry in the world). He has also served on the Board of Directors for the American Society of Preventive Cardiology, as the Associate Editor for Innovations for ACC.org, and the Digital Strategy lead for the cardiovascular disease prevention-related content for ACC.org. He currently serves on the World Heart Organisation's Technical Advisory Group on NCD-related research and innovation (TAG/RI). He has been inducted several times in the Best Doctors® Database (peer-reviewed group that includes the top 5% of US physicians). 

Dr Virani has served as a panel member for the 2018 AHA/ACC Multi-society Guideline on Cholesterol Management, the 2019 ACC/AHA Guideline for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, and the 2019 World Heart Federation and International Diabetes Federation's Road Map on the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease among People Living with Diabetes. He served as Co-Chair for the NLA’s Global think tank on Lipoprotein(a) and as a writing committee member of the World Heart Federation's Road Map on Cholesterol Management and the European Atherosclerosis Society's Consensus statement on Lipoprotein(a). He chaired the 2023 AHA/ACC Guideline for the Management of Patients With Chronic Coronary Disease.