The philosophy of this NATO Advanced Research Workshop and the monograph
it has yielded is that if you put a small number of very talented and
creative scientists of different backgrounds and documented
accomplishments together in a cloistered place for a few days to
consider a very important and timely topic, many new ideas will be
generated. The keynote of this conference was the Future. By this we
mean the expected future developments of highly reliable sequential
quantitative measurements of atherosclerotic plaque size and components
in living human subjects. Some of the best minds and the most
experienced and talented individuals at the leading edges of imaging of
arteries were involved; some of the best scientists and students of the
atherosclerotic plaque and its components participated; and some of the
leading investigators of the cell biology or, as we call it in the USA,
the pathobiology of atherosclerosis, contributed important new
information. All of these individuals were actively involved in the
conference and each obviously had carefully prepared and was able to
communicate effectively.