Prof. A. von Eckardstein is the Chair of the Institute of Clinical Chemistry at the University of Zurich. He has been coordinator or participant of Swiss or European biomarker research projects, e.g. HDL-X in the Swiss Systems X Initiative, HDLomics in FP6, RESOLVE and TansCard in FP7. His research interests include risk factors, biomarkers and pathogenesis of vascular disease; regulation, metabolism and function of lipoproteins, especially high density lipoproteins (HDL). He has published more than 470 original and review papers in international scientific journals. Prof. von Eckardstein has served as the Secretary of the European Atherosclerosis Society and as the Chairman of the European Lipoprotein Club, the Swiss and the German Atherosclerosis Societies, as well as the Swiss Society of Clinical Chemistry. Currently he is the Editor-in-Chief of Atherosclerosis, the official journal of the European Atherosclerosis Society.