Atherosclerosis is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease affecting the large and medium-sized arteries. The main danger of atherosclerosis lies in the rupture of the plaques which leads to severe complications (heart attacks, stroke). Although treatments which rest on the drug delivery are daily implemented for avoiding the fatal rupture of vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques, cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death in industrialized countries. The treatment of vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques remains an urgent need. It was recently demonstrated that the eradication of macrophages, which play a crucial role in the development and rupture of the plaques, by combining two complementary modes of hyperthermia (magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH) and photothermal therapy (PTT)) constitutes a promising strategy which deserves to be more deeply explored. In this context, we propose to develop magnetoplasmonic nanostructures and evaluate by in vitro and vivo experiments their potential for image-guided therapy of atherosclerosis. Owing to their morphology and composition, iron oxide (maghemite) nanoflowers decorated by ultrasmall chelator-coated gold nanoparticles (GIONF) exhibit attractive magnetic, optical and immunomodulatory properties for combining MFH, PTT and several imaging modalities including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic particle imaging (MPI). Unlike MRI, MPI should permit the quantification of GIONF in the plaques which is a crucial information for initiating the eradication or reprogrammation of macrophages in the plaques by MH and PTT. Since the in vivo behavior and the magnetic, optical and immunomodulatory properties of GIONF depend on the size, the crystalline character and the amount of gold nanoparticles, these parameters which can be adjusted by the experimental conditions imposed for the synthesis of GIONF will be carefully investigated during nanoHyMPI project.