Dr Frans Van de Werf gained his MD in 1972 from the University of Leuven, Belgium. He has made his PhD on diastolic heart function and the genesis of the third heart sound. He was the first to give tPA to patients with an acute myocardial infarction and became involved in the organization of many multicentre trials of antithrombotic therapy in acute coronary syndromes. He has been the editor-in-chief of the EHJ and is currently Senior Guest editor of Circulation.He has published over 750 peer reviewed papers. Dr Van de Werf is currently Senior Professor of Cardiology at the department of cardiovascular sciences of the University of Leuven.