The European Center for Angioscience (ECAS) is set up in a modular and integrative manner following organ, organ-system, and disease-related research fields. Collaborative interdisciplinary areas will be established along with technical platforms to be used jointly with the other institutes of the faculty. The innovative research concept of ECAS incorproates the following research fields:

• Basic Angioscience – Biology of the Vascular Niche

• Translational Angioscience – Vascular Control of Disease Processes

• Precision Angioscience – Applied Angiotargeting

All together, ECAS incorporates eight existing professorships from the pre-clinical and clinical-theoretical research areas of the faculty. ECAS will make a plea for four new endowment professorships (Biology of the Vascular Niche and Angiokine Research, Vascular Control of Organ Function, Vascular Control of Metabolism, Vascular Control of Metastasis) which will strengthen the major novel research areas of the European Center for Angioscience. These professorships are to be filled successively. Private sector funding will complement these activities to realize some of these professorships as endowment positions.

The ECAS project includes plans for the construction of a 4.500 sqm research building in which the faculty and the junior groups of the Research Division of ECAS will be clustered for a maximum of synergy and collaboration and which will serve as the hub for all vascular basic and translational research activities in the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Area.