Marie-Luce Bochaton-Piallat, PhD (biochemistry), associate professor, leads a research group at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Geneva where she also teaches cardiovascular pathophysiology. She is vice-chair of the Working Group Atherosclerosis and Vascular Biology of the ESC. She also serves as member of the scientific committee of the Swiss CardioVascular Biology Working Group and section editor of The ESC Textbook of Vascular Biology. Recently she co-edited a spotlight issue on Novel concept for the role of smooth muscle cells in vascular disease in CardioVascular Research. She has a longstanding experience in the implication of smooth muscle cell heterogeneity in atherosclerosis. She is currently investigating the role of S100A4 in the phenotypic modulation of intimal smooth muscle cells in vitro and in vivo. Since 2002 she receives continuous support from the Swiss National Science Foundation for her research. Her h-index is 34.