Dr. Mustafa Zakkar is an associate professor and honorary consultant cardiac surgeon at the University of Leicester and Glenfield Hospital, Leicester. In 2010, he received a PhD in cardiovascular medicine from the University of London for his work investigating the role of blood flow and shear stress on the development of vascular endothelial cell activation and the development of atherosclerosis and vein graft disease. He started his higher national surgical training in cardiothoracic surgery at St George’s hospital in London, then moved to Bristol as an academic clinical lecturer in cardiothoracic surgery. Having been trained by leading cardiac surgeons such as Prof G D Angelini and Mr A J Bryan, he then relocated to Paris, France, to be trained in aortic repair surgery by Dr E Lansac. Following higher surgical training, Mr Zakkar took up a locum cardiac consultant surgeon post at St George’s Hospital in London before moving to his current post in Leicester. At present, his research focuses on the role of shear stress upon signaling pathways of vascular dysfunction, and he has a very successful track record of supervising many PhD and MD (Res) students. Mr Zakkar has a key supervisory role with the cardiothoracic compendium by providing expert opinion and quality control of all compendium content prior to publication.