Dr Blanca Tardajos Ayllón is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sheffield in the Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease, funded by the British Heart Foundation. She obtained a BSc in Biochemistry at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) with a year abroad at the University of York. Later, she completed an MSc in Molecular Medicine at the University of Sheffield where her work focused on the identification of mechanoreceptors that regulate endothelial apoptosis using zebrafish models. Dr Tardajos Ayllón then did her PhD in Cardiovascular Science with Professor Paul Evans. Her PhD, funded by the MRC-DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership, focused on the role of the NF-κB transcription factor c-Rel in endothelial mechanobiology and atherosclerosis (figure 1).