Editorial introductions

Abstract

Current Opinion in Lipidology was launched in 1990. It is part of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The field of lipidology is divided into six sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Section Editor for this issue. Section Editor Mohamad NavabMohamad NavabMohamad Navab is a Faculty and a co-project leader at David Geffen school of medicine, University of California Los Angeles. He obtained his PhD in biochemistry from Columbia University, in 1976. Subsequently, he served as an Assistant Professor and Head of Clinical Labs at the National University School of Medicine in Tehran, Iran. He started his research and teaching first at the UCLA Cancer Center in 1981 and subsequently at the Division of Cardiology at UCLA where he has been since 1983. Prof. Navab has received research support from NIH and has served as grant reviewer for the National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute at NIH and the American Heart Association. He serves on the editorial board and advisory board of a dozen scientific journals. Prof. Navab has authored or been a coauthor for 203 papers indexed at PubMed and has presented 171 invited national and international medical lectures. Menno de WintherMenno de WintherMenno de Winther is a Professor of vascular immune cell biology at the AMC of the Amsterdam-University Medical Centers, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Prof. de Winther graduated in biology at Utrecht University, Netherlands, and obtained his PhD in 1999 at Leiden University, Netherlands with a thesis on macrophage scavenger receptors in atherosclerosis. After completing the PhD, he was a postdoc in Oxford University, UK and Maastricht University, Netherlands and became a principal investigator studying the role of macrophages in cardiovascular disease. In 2011, Prof. de Winther was appointed as a Professor of vascular immune cell biology at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam. Using cellular and animal models for disease, his group studies the molecular regulation of macrophages in inflammatory disease. His research particularly focuses on the transcriptional regulation of monocytes and macrophages in atherosclerosis, characterizing environmental factors (e.g. dyslipidemia, metabolic triggers, cytokines) that drives signaling pathways influencing cellular function in disease. Prof. de Winther's group was the first to define the role of the transcription factor NF-κB in atherosclerosis and more recently identified the epigenetic enzyme HDAC3 a major regulator of macrophage gene programs in atherosclerosis. Significant efforts in his group are now running on further delineating epigenetic pathways in atherosclerostic diseases. His group thrives on a combination of human and mouse cell- and animal models combined with patient studies through close interactions with the clinic. Dr de Winther is an established investigator of the Netherlands Heart Foundation and together with Dr Glass (UCSD) is currently coordinating a Leducq Transatlantic Network on epigenetics in atherosclerosis.