The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) is organizing a workshop and discussion forum open to the entire audience of IVBM 2016 to explore the timeliness of creating "The Vasculome," an integrated, multi-dimensional, multi-scale map of the human vasculature.

Workshop discussions will seek to identify opportunities to address some key enduring challenges in the way of integrating traditional and state-of-the-art knowledge and investigational tools from various areas of vascular biology, including answering specific questions such as:

• What are the challenges remaining in the way of multidimensional investigations (-omics, imaging, physiology) of vascular cells down to the single cell level in their natural microenvironments, including challenges in sampling, in situ technologies, etc.?
• What strategic approaches can be used to integrate biological, technological, and computational advances to produce multiscale, multidimensional vascular maps for the purpose of understanding the complex dynamic short and long range interactions among various vascular cells, and their communications with other cell types within various tissue "vascular units" (e.g., with the brain, heart, kidney, etc.) and at the whole body level?
• Could we perhaps use the endothelium as the organizing principle of the "Vasculome"? We are looking forward to the vascular community participation and to great discussions during and following this workshop!