Featured Open Lecture: December-January 2024

Inflammation in the metabolic syndrome by Dr Peter Libby

Peter Libby, MD, is a cardiovascular specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and holds the Mallinckrodt Professorship of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His areas of clinical expertise include general and preventive cardiology.

His current major research focus is the role of inflammation in vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. DR Libby has a particular devotion to translating his basic laboratory studies to pilot and then large-scale clinical cardiovascular outcome trials. He instigated and helped to lead the large-scale CANTOS trial that provided clinical validation of the role of inflammation in atherosclerosis.
Peter Libby’s research has contributed central knowledge on obesity-driven inflammation and the activation of both the innate and the adaptive immune system.

In this lecture, Professor Peter Libby reviews the interplay between atherosclerosis, metabolic syndrome, and inflammation. Firstly, the effects of inflammation on obesity, diabetes, and atherosclerosis; secondly, the effect of glycaemic control on inflammation; and finally, the lack of effect of IL-1β inhibition on new-onset diabetes in the CANTOS study.