IL1B and atherosclerosis: Inflammasome activation and subsequent IL-1β production via caspase 1 activity has been a pharmacological target of great interest in CVD in recent years as inflammasome activation contributes to tissue damage and disease progression (Tong et al., 2020), and genetic knockout of inflammasome components results in overall reduced plaque burden in murine models of atherosclerosis (Karasawa and Takahashi, 2017).