Professor Chris J Packard CBE PhD DSc FRCPath FRCP(Gla) FRSE Prof Packard has focussed on two main aspects of atherosclerosis research - lipoprotein metabolism and how it is affected by diets and drugs, and large-scale clinical trials of lipid lowering agents. More recently his interests have widened to include investigations of emerging risk factors, the role of genetics in coronary heart disease, and the impact of social deprivation on health. Key contributions on the kinetics of apolipoprotein B include evaluation of the role of the LDL receptor in vivo and how it is activated by lipid lowering drugs, the discovery of metabolic channelling in the VLDL-LDL delipidation cascade, and the formulation of models to explain the generation of small, dense LDL and remnant lipoproteins. As study director and one of the main investigators of the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (WOSCOPS and the Prospective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly at Risk (PROSPER), Prof Packard helped establish the evidence base for statin use in CHD prevention. These trials provided confidence that statins are beneficial in primary prevention and in older adults. Recent publication of the 15 and 20 year follow up of WOSCOPS have provided unique long-term safety data. Atherosclerosis is now recognised as an inflammatory disease, and this paradigm was examined in nested case-control studies using samples from clinical trials. Work from our laboratory has helped elucidate the role of biomarkers such as CRP, high-sensitivity troponin and lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 in predicting risk of CHD and of type 2 diabetes. Other collaborations explored the usefulness of emerging risk factors such as telomere length and variants in candidate genes. Recently, Dr Packard contributed to European expert consensus Panels and major publications on the causal role of LDL in atherosclerosis, and the role of triglycerides and remnant lipoproteins in CVD.

Klaus Parhofer is a Professor of Metabolism and Endocrinology at the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany, a position he has held since 2003. Professor Parhofer obtained his Medical Degree at the University of Munich, Germany, and pursued his postgraduate specialization in Internal Medicine, Metabolism and Endocrinology and in Intensive Care Medicine. Professor Parhofer also held a postdoctoral position in the Lipid Research Center at Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and at the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. His research focuses on lipoprotein metabolism, particularly diabetic dyslipoproteinemia. Beside basic research, he is also involved in many clinical studies and has published over 300 articles in scientific journals. As a clinician he sees patients with metabolic diseases, especially dyslipidemia but also adult patients with inborn errors of metabolism on a regular basis and is a member of many professional societies and associations

Valeria Pecce has been an assistant professor at the Department of Translational and Precision Medicine of the Sapienza University of Rome since 2019. She received her master's degree in Genetics and Molecular Biology in 2012 and the Ph.D. in Biomedical Technologies in Clinical Medicine in 2017. Her experience is based on using model systems for in vitro experiments. After the degree training using simpler organisms such as bacteria, yeast, and plants, she performed in vitro procedures on human and mouse cells or three-dimensional systems such as organoids. Since 2012 her field has been the molecular biology of thyroid carcinomas, with particular attention to the intracellular regulation of gene expression of specific-thyroid genes, proteins, and the microRNAs involved in cancer. Recently, she also started studying the post-translational regulation of proteins involved in lipid metabolism.