Oliver Weingärtner is Professor of Cardiology at the University Hospital Jena; Germany. He is certified in Interventional Cardiology, Angiology, Internal Medicine and Intensive Care Medicine. He has received numerous honours, serves in editorial boads and is the current President of the German Society of Lipidology (DGFF).

Dr. Marit Westerterp is Associate Professor at the University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands. She obtained her PhD from Leiden University and performed postdoctoral research at Columbia University, New York NY. Her research is focused on the crosstalk between cholesterol metabolism and inflammation in atherosclerosis and ageing. Specifically, she has studied the role of cholesterol efflux pathways mediated by the ATP Binding Cassette A1 and G1 (ABCA1 and ABCG1) transporters. She found that ABCA1 and ABCG1 mediated cholesterol efflux pathways suppress inflammasome activation, leading to amelioration of an auto-immune phenotype and decreased neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation in atherosclerotic lesions; the latter mediated by interleukin-1β (IL-1β) secretion from macrophages. Recently, she discovered that T cell cholesterol efflux pathways suppress T cell ageing by decreasing T cell senescence and apoptosis, which affects macrophage inflammation and atherosclerosis. She serves on the editorial boards of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, as well as Circulation Research. Her research is supported by a VIDI grant from the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research (NWO) and Rosalind Franklin Fellowship (with EU Co-Fund attached). She is member of the consortium PLAK-TALK (supported by the Dutch Heart Foundation, German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK), and British Heart Foundation).

Albert Wiegman, born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, became a paediatrician and member of staff at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers in March 1991. In January 1993, he completed his sub-specialization in paediatric cardiology. In that same year, the Paediatric-Lipid Department came under his care and he started his research into the treatment of familial hypercholesterolaemia in children. He brought the research to completion in his thesis: ‘Paediatric Implications of Heterozygous Familial Hypercholesterolaemia’. In March 2020, he was appointed Associate Professor and Principal Investigator. Over the last 30 years, more than 4000 children with inherited dyslipidaemias have visited his ward, and he and his team have published over 100 articles in highly ranked international journals related to these disorders.

Dr R Scott Wright is a Professor of Medicine and Consultant in Cardiology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, USA. His work at Mayo Clinic has focused on acute coronary syndromes, preventive cardiology, and clinical trial design and research. Dr Wright graduated with his bachelor’s degree and his Doctorate of Medicine from the University of Kentucky. He completed his post-medical school training in internal medicine and clinical investigation and his fellowship in cardiovascular diseases at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Dr Wright has authored almost 200 original articles and book chapters in the field of cardiovascular medicine. He also serves as Associate Editor of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, the official Journal of Mayo Clinic. He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Minnesota, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Maryland, in the US, and the Catholic University in Santiago and Valparaiso University, both in Chile. He and his wife have four children and live in Rochester, Minnesota. His hobbies include golf, travel and amateur radio.