German Society for Arteriosclerosis Research
Germany’s leading interdisciplinary forum for atherosclerosis science and prevention
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Atherosclerosis Research (DGAF) is Germany’s foremost society devoted to understanding, preventing, and treating atherosclerosis — the disease that underlies most cardiovascular and neurologic morbidity in the industrialised world. Founded by internist Werner H. Hauss and physiologist Eberhard Betz in 1987, DGAF unites basic scientists and clinicians from a broad spectrum of disciplines: pathological anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, cardiology, angiology, hemostasisology, laboratory medicine, and neurology.
The DGAF holds its annual scientific meetings, administer the W. H. Hauss-Preis and its other awards, and support young investigators in the atherosclerosis field. As such, the DGAF will continue its role as nationwide network of academic vascular researchers that together aim to shape progress in atherosclerosis research in Germany ad worldwide.
DGAF also serves as the German section of the International Atherosclerosis Society (IAS), collaborating on developing region‑adapted cardiovascular‑prevention guidelines and promoting harmonised, evidence‑based practice. By integrating diverse scientific perspectives and fostering collaboration across specialties and internationally, DGAF continues to advance the frontiers of atherosclerosis research and translate findings into effective, population‑based prevention strategies.
What Is Its Purpose?
M. Hanefeld and H. Hahmann
Medical disciplines need their professional societies. Many are well acquainted with the remarkable growth in membership and conference activity, for example, of the German Society for Cardiology. But against this background, what do smaller, interdisciplinary, cross-linked societies such as the German Society for Arteriosclerosis Research (DGAF) contribute?
Certainly, there is no intention of establishing a medical specialty devoted to arteriosclerotic diseases. The founders of the DGAF, internist Werner H. Hauss of Münster and physiologist Eberhard Betz of Tübingen, set out to bring together the expertise of theoretical disciplines such as pathological anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and, more recently, molecular and cell biology with the problems encountered by clinicians in cardiology, angiology, haemostasiology, laboratory medicine and, indeed, neurology. All these fields are concerned in part with one of the most important, if not the most significant, groups of diseases in industrialized countries: arteriosclerosis. Since, until then, the interests of cardiovascular researchers had focused, alongside clinical and therapeutic approaches, primarily on pathophysiological foundations, the founding of the DGAF helped close the gap towards causal pathogenesis and its preventive implications.
Under these circumstances, it is remarkable that a young, non-hierarchically structured society concerned with highly specialized topics has today acquired considerable scientific significance. This is evident, among other things, from the fact that an annual conference has become established under seminar-style conditions at the University of Tübingen’s guest house in Blaubeuren, where approximately 250 participants present between 100 and 130 high-quality original contributions. This publication activity demonstrates the society’s considerable research potential. It is young in two respects: 80% of its members are under 40, and it is only twelve years old. In this short time, it has made a substantial contribution to closing the gap between experimental arteriosclerosis research in Germany and that in the United States, England and elsewhere, drawing closer to its former stature through numerous innovative contributions, insofar as this is possible under the changed conditions of a rapidly expanding field of research. Much of the experimental know-how and many of the new findings developed in this field have flowed into the work of major professional societies—often through the same individuals—and vice versa.
The DGAF also forms the German section of the International Atherosclerosis Society (IAS), whose activities include developing guidelines for cardiovascular prevention. This task is made more difficult by the coexistence of several current international guidelines and by differing regional priorities around the world. The task of the IAS’s national sections is therefore to develop guidelines adapted to regional needs. This must not, however, result in adding to the already long list of guidelines in circulation in Germany. Progress towards prevention goals can be achieved only by bringing together and updating, as far as possible, the recommendations of all national societies on cardiovascular prevention. The DGAF will contribute to this work in fulfilling its mandate from the IAS.
This also demonstrates the value of a society dedicated to combating arteriosclerotic diseases. Knowledge of atherogenesis and the manifestations of these diseases is growing exponentially in every direction; it is difficult to survey, even more difficult to interpret, and apparently increasingly difficult to translate into practical treatment, whether for health-economic reasons or because of a lack of consensus. Too often today, despite the high specificity and considerable economic resources devoted to our healthcare system, the evidence-based pharmacological secondary prevention of coronary heart disease and other cardiovascular arteriosclerotic diseases is not provided under this pretext.
Communicating the state of arteriosclerosis research to clinicians from an interdisciplinary perspective, helping them distinguish between still-experimental therapeutic approaches on the one hand and evidence-based therapeutic responsibilities on the other, and thereby bridging the gap between current knowledge and practical treatment will be an important task for the future—one to which the German Society for Arteriosclerosis Research can contribute.
(As of 2001)