Dr Nirav Patel earned his MD from the Baroda Medical College, India. After graduation, he started working as a postdoctoral clinical research fellow under the supervision of Dr Pankaj Arora at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), whose words, “As a practicing clinician, you can certainly make a meaningful impact to the well-being of a few families in your career, but as a physician-scientist, you can change lives of millions,” still ring in his ears every day. Nirav’s research is focused on understanding the response of the natriuretic peptide system to physiological and pharmacological perturbations and gaining mechanistic insights into natriuretic peptide deficiency states, such as obesity. Nirav is currently a physician-scientist medicine/cardiology trainee at UAB and relishing his clinical medicine years, which he describes as far less strenuous than his postdoc. Outside of work, Nirav enjoys time with his wife and likes to travel around the world.

Dr Ram Prasad is a Scientist-I in the lab of Dr Maria Grant in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). After completing his PhD at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India, he joined the Department of Dermatology at UAB in 2010, where he worked on various cellular and molecular mechanism associated with the development and progression of different cancers. His research mainly focused on dissecting the molecular and cellular mechanisms linking prevention/intervention. In 2018, he joined Dr Grant’s lab in order to gain deeper insights into diabetes and diabetic microvascular complications. For him, scientific research is the answer to all biological puzzles. His life’s goal is to produce meaningful scientific research and help to improve the quality of life of the various patient populations. Outside the lab, he likes to spend time with his family and participate in indoor and outdoor activities, like swimming, pool table, table tennis, soccer, biking, and sightseeing.

Dr Mi-Kyung Shin is a research associate in the Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University. She earned her MS and PhD from Inha University in South Korea. Since 2010, she has been working with Dr Polotsky, who is focused on the effects of intermittent hypoxia on lipid and glucose metabolism and the pathogenesis of obstructive sleep apnea. Mi-Kyung focuses on the role of carotid bodies and sympathetic nervous system in metabolic and cardiovascular complications of sleep-disordered breathing. Together, with Dr Polotosky, Mi-Kyung has begun to explore new pathways to develop treatment for obese patients with poorly controlled hypertension, diabetes, and sleep apnea. In the lab, she likes to help and communicate with colleagues. And, outside the lab, she likes reading, cooking, and volunteering with her church. Her favorite book is The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis, and her motto is, “There is no failure except in no longer trying.”

Dr Chien-Jung Lin is currently an interventional cardiology fellow at Washington University in St. Louis. He received his MD from National Taiwan University. His PhD studies with Dr Matthew Scott at Stanford University focused on epigenetic factors in cardiac development. He then moved to Washington University for clinical training in internal medicine and cardiology. As part of the physician-scientist training pathway, he spent a year in the laboratory of Dr Robert Mecham. Initially aiming to study the source of elastic recoil after percutaneous intervention, he stumbled upon an unexpected heterogeneity in the cellular contribution to arterial elastic laminae, which formed the basis of the study published in this issue. After finishing his year of clinical interventional cardiology training, he will return to the bench to complete research training. His long-term goal is a career as a physician-scientist in interventional cardiology, translating knowledge of disease mechanisms to clinical applications. When not placing stents, seeing patients, or working in the lab, he enjoys hiking and spending time with family.

Dr Marc Clement earned his PhD in 2014 from Paris Denis Diderot University (mentor, Dr Giuseppina Caligiuri), where he studied immune cell interactions in the setting of chronic inflammatory diseases. His PhD was supported by a scholarship from Région Paris Île-de-France (CORRDIM). Previously, Dr Clement earned a BS in Biomedical Research from Ecole Supérieure des Techniques de Biologie Appliquée (ESTBA, Paris, France), and an MS in Biology from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE, Paris, France). In 2015, he was awarded the Prix Aguirre-Basualdo/Robin, Medicine, from the Chancellerie des Universités de Paris. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr Ziad Mallat’s lab at the University of Cambridge (UK), Department of Cardiovascular Medicine until 2018. In 2019, he obtained a Grant from the “Fondation pour la recherche médicale” to study vascular inflammation and kidney diseases in the Laboratory for Vascular Translational Science (LVTS, INSERM U1148, Paris, France). His research focuses on pro- and anti-inflammatory processes mediating kidney fibrosis. He is particularly interested in studying the mechanisms linking inflammatory-mediated tissue damages and glomerulosclerosis.