Annet Kirabo, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt Health, will receive the American Heart Association’s 2026 Joseph A. Vita Award for research that has transformed how science understands high blood pressure.

Born in Uganda and trained in veterinary medicine at Makerere University, Kirabo earned her PhD in physiology and functional genomics from the University of Florida in 2011. She joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 2015 and now works in the Division of Genetic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology.

Her pioneering discoveries revealed how immune activation and inflammation drive hypertension and cardiovascular disease. She uncovered potential therapeutic targets including isolevuglandins — reactive lipid molecules — and sodium-sensing pathways in immune cells, opening new possibilities for preventing and treating hypertension and related kidney disease.

The Vita Award is selected by the editors-in-chief of the Association’s 14 peer-reviewed journals and honours research published in the last five years that changes the direction of cardiovascular science. Kirabo will be presented the award at the AHA’s Scientific Sessions in Chicago on November 7.

It is her second AHA honour this fall: she will also receive the Established Investigator Award for Clinical Hypertension on October 10 in Arlington, Virginia.