Gerard Pasterkamp, MD, is Professor of Experimental Cardiology, UMC Utrecht, the Netherlands. His research interests are in the field of cardiovascular biology and more specifically innovation in biomarkers and drug targets. The research group houses one of the largest atherosclerotic plaque biobank worldwide: Athero-Express including >4000 patients This biobank has generated new insights into determinants of plaque destabilisation. For example, it has been demonstrated that local plaque characteristics are strongly associated with long term outcome but also that plaque characteristics have rapidly changed in the last decade. The laboratory now invests in the excavation of genetic determinants of atherosclerotic plaque characteristics. Insights in the mechanisms of atherosclerosis progression have been obtained by executing whole genome SNP analyses and DNA methylation as well as single cell sequencing.