Claudia Monaco

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the biggest killer world-wide in the general population and affects disproportionately patients with chronic inflammatory diseases. Thick-walled large and medium sized arteries, where atherosclerosis – the main cause of CVD – occurs, have their own immune cell complement embedded within. As atherosclerotic “plaques” develop, immune cells have a non-redundant role in causing CVD. The vascular wall immune cell complement is heterogeneous and, contrary to earlier expectations, it performs both homeostatic and pathogenic functions. Discrimination between pathogenic and reparative cell states is crucial to design safe and selective diagnostic and therapeutic approaches targeting immunity in cardiovascular disease. The Cardiovascular Inflammation Laboratory (CVIL) is focused on the discovery of the cellular building blocks of atherosclerotic plaques. We generate atlases of human and murine atherosclerosis as part of several multicentre projects bringing together cardiologists, vascular surgeons, immunologists and vascular biologists. Applying and tailoring single cell technologies to arteries we have enumerated and characterized novel immune subsets within the arterial wall in health and disease, their distribution, and their dynamics during atherogenesis. Combining single cell biology platforms such as 10x genomics and mass cytometry with mutant mice we assign specific functions to discrete vascular immune cell subsets. We are currently using these insights to decipher the intricate regulation of cell subset function and education in the atherosclerotic microenvironment with a focus on innate immunity.