(Vienna, 12 September 2016) Peter Libby, Professor at Harvard Medical School, has shaped our modern understanding of atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases and laid the foundations for the current therapeutic principles for treating these diseases. On 9 September 2016, at the kick-off meeting at the newly founded Center for Cardiovascular Medicine (CCVM) at MedUni Vienna and Vienna General Hospital, he gave a lecture entitled "Inflammation and Atherosclerosis" in MedUni Vienna's Jugendstilhörsaal (Art Nouveau Lecture Theatre).
The newly founded Center for Cardiovascular Medicine will combine treatment of patients with cardiovascular diseases with clinical and fundamental research in this field. Gerald Maurer, Head of the Department of Medicine II and Günther Laufer, Head of the Division of Cardiac Surgery have orchestrated the creation of the new centre. It is hoped that patients will benefit from improvements in diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, which will also filter down into the care they receive from their registered specialists. Cardiovascular diseases and their sequelae are the commonest causes of death in the Western world. Diagnosis, treatment and focused research in the area of cardiovascular diseases require close interdisciplinary cooperation.