Editorial - April 2021

Dear Members of the ESC Working Group on Atherosclerosis and Vascular Biology,

We hope our April newsletter reaches you and your families well and safe. Despite the COVID-19-related challenges that were brought in our lives, we would like to stay in touch with you, promote your research work, celebrate with you your recent breakthrough discoveries and plan together future ESC educational activities.

We are pleased to announce that the online Symposium entitled “Does atherosclerosis have a sex & gender? Perspectives from basic science to clinical practice”, already mentioned in our previous newsletter, will take place on Wednesday April 28, 2021 from 17:00 to 18:30 CEST in the frame of the Council of Basic Cardiovascular Science (CBCS) Spring Program. We thank the CBCS for this great opportunity. World experts in the field will discuss differences between sexes and genders in cardiovascular disease from the perspectives of fundamental and translational research. Our greatest wish is to gather our Members and give you the opportunity to interact with our invited speakers in a friendly and warm atmosphere. We truly want to be by your side even though the COVID-19-associated restrictions do not allow us to meet in real life yet. Do not hesitate to register for this great event today! Registration is complimentary but essential in order to receive the symposium link.

We would also like to grasp this opportunity and congratulate Prof. Magnus Bäck, past-chairperson of our working group, who has been appointed Editor-In-Chief of the new ESC journal European Heart Journal Open (EHJ Open). The journal welcomes submissions from the entire spectrum of cardiovascular medicine and has a section on Translational Basic Science. We hope that our Members will consider submitting their best science to this new ESC open access journal. Further details are available at the EHJ Open website.

In this issue of the Newsletter, we have handpicked for you four recently published exciting original research articles on atherosclerosis. If you wish to learn more about the impact of novel experimental therapies on atherosclerosis development or plaque vulnerability, we suggest you read how targeting macrophage lysosomal or energy metabolism, T-regulatory cells or smooth muscle cell transition from a contractile to a pro-inflammatory phenotype may affect atherosclerotic plaque formation or stability. We would like to congratulate warmly the authors of these amazing research articles which are expected to drive novel therapies in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death worldwide.

On behalf of the Nucleus Members of the Working Group on Atherosclerosis and Vascular Biology, may you all stay healthy and safe!!

Konstantinos Stellos, Communication Coordinator
Marie-Luce Bochaton-Piallat, Chairperson