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The biology of atherosclerosis comes full circle: lessons for conquering cardiovascular disease

Nature Reviews Cardiology volume 18, pages 683–684 (2021)Cite this article

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Atherosclerosis causes myocardial infarction, ischaemic cardiomyopathy, many ischaemic strokes and jeopardized limbs. Despite enormous progress, atherosclerosis has become the major cause of death worldwide. This Comment intertwines clinical and basic advances in atherosclerosis to illustrate their interdependence, which provides a template for a way forwards to conquer the scourge of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

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Fig. 1: Timeline of discoveries in atherosclerosis.

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Acknowledgements

P.L. receives funding support from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (1R01HL134892), the AHA (18CSA34080399), the RRM Charitable Fund and the Simard Fund.

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  1. Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Peter Libby

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  1. Peter Libby
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Correspondence to Peter Libby.

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Competing interests

P.L. is an unpaid consultant to or involved in clinical trials for Amgen, AstraZeneca, Baim Institute, Beren Therapeutics, Esperion Therapeutics, Genentech, Kancera, Kowa Pharmaceuticals, Medimmune, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer and Sanofi-Regeneron; and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Amgen, Caristo, Cartesian, Corvidia Therapeutics, CSL Behring, DalCor Pharmaceuticals, Dewpoint, Kowa Pharmaceuticals, Olatec Therapeutics, Medimmune, Novartis, PlaqueTec and XBiotech. P.L.’s laboratory has received research funding in the past 2 years from Novartis. P.L. is on the Board of Directors of XBiotech. P.L. has a financial interest in XBiotech, a company developing therapeutic human antibodies. P.L.’s interests were reviewed and are managed by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Partners HealthCare in accordance with their conflict-of-interest policies.

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Libby, P. The biology of atherosclerosis comes full circle: lessons for conquering cardiovascular disease. Nat Rev Cardiol 18, 683–684 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-021-00609-1

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