Dr Stephane Carlier is the Director of Intravascular Imaging and Physiology at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, New York. He is also in charge of the Intravascular Ultrasound Clinical Program at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. Prior to this, he worked as an interventional cardiologist in the Cardiovascular Centre in Aalst, Belgium. In 2000, he gained his PhD in bioengineering from the Thoraxcentre, Erasmus University, Rotterdam and subsequently worked in the catheterisation laboratory at the Thoraxcentre for five years taking part in the pioneering European clinical trials on drugeluting stents and brachytherapy.