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Charis Eng, M.D., Ph.D.Department ChairSondra J. and Stephen R. Hardis Chair of Cancer Genomic MedicineGenomic Medicine Institute (NE50) |
Secondary Appointments: Taussig Cancer Center
Academic Appointments: Professor and Vice Chairman, Department of Genetics, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Professor, Department of Molecular Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine
Honorary Appointments: Honorary Fellow, Cancer Research UK Human Cancer Genetics Research Group, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
National Scholar, Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus
Education and Training:
Selected Major Honors and Awards:
Narrative Biosketch:
Charis Eng, MD, PhD is the Chair and founding Director of the Genomic Medicine Institute of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, founding Director and attending clinical cancer geneticist of the institute’s clinical component, the Center for Personalized Genetic Healthcare, and Professor and Vice Chairman of the Department of Genetics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. She holds a joint appointment as Professor of Molecular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and is a full member of Cleveland Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Center and of the CASE Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Eng was honored with the Sondra J. and Stephen R. Hardis Endowed Chair in Cancer Genomic Medicine in January, 2008, and more recently, the American Cancer Society Professorship of Clinical Cancer Research. She continues to hold an honorary appointment at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Eng’s research interests may be broadly characterized as clinical cancer genetics translational research. Her work on RET testing in multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 and the characterization of the widening clinical spectra of PTEN gene mutations have been acknowledged as the paradigm for the practice of clinical cancer genetics. Her recent work on germline homozygosity and cancer predisposition, and on somatic genomic and epigenomic alterations in solid tumor microenvironment are considered paradigm-shifting. At the clinical interface, Dr. Eng is acknowledged as one of the rare “go to” people on what is and how to implement genetic- and –omics-informed personalized healthcare.
Dr. Eng grew up in Singapore and Bristol, UK and entered the University of Chicago at the age of 16. After completing an MD and PhD at its Pritzker School of Medicine, she specialized in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston and trained in medical oncology at Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She was formally trained in clinical cancer genetics at the University of Cambridge and the Royal Marsden NHS Trust, UK, and in laboratory-based human cancer genetics by Bruce Ponder, MB, PhD. At the end of 1995, Dr. Eng returned to the Farber as Assistant Professor of Medicine, and in January, 1999 was recruited by The Ohio State University as Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of the Clinical Cancer Genetics Program. In 2001, she was honored with the conferment of the Davis Professorship and appointed Co-Director of the Division of Human Genetics in the Department of Internal Medicine. In 2002, she was promoted to Professor and Division Director, and was conferred the Klotz Endowed Chair. She was recruited to the Cleveland Clinic in Sept, 2005. Dr. Eng has published over 320 peer reviewed original papers in such journals as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Lancet, Nature Genetics, Nature, Cell and Molecular Cell. She has received numerous awards and honors including election to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, to the Association of American Physicians and as Fellow of AAAS, the Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award and named a Local Legend from Ohio bestowed by the American Medical Women’s Association in conjunction with the US Senate on women physicians who have demonstrated commitment, originality, innovation and/or creativity in their fields of medicine. Dr. Eng is the 2005 recipient of the ATA Van Meter Award at the 13th International Thyroid Conference, the 2006 Ernst Oppenheimer Award of The Endocrine Society and the 2006 American Cancer Society John Peter Minton, MD, PhD Hero of Hope Research Medal of Honor. She was the North American Editor of the Journal of Medical Genetics from 1998 to 2005, Senior Editor of Cancer Research, 2004-09, and Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (2005-09) and of the American Journal of Human Genetics (2007-09). Dr. Eng completed a 3-year term on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Human Genetics, is completing her term as Chair of the Clinical Science Committee of the Personalized Medicine Coalition and is serving a 5-year term on the Board of Scientific Directors of the National Human Genome Research Institute and. She has also been invited to present her expert opinion on screening genetic tests to MEDCAC (to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) in 2009, being only one of 7 presenting and the only Cleveland Clinic physician-scientist to have been invited to present at MEDCAC in the last decade. Recently, Dr. Eng was appointed by Kathleen Sebelius to the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society (2009-13). In 2010, she was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.
Recent Peer Reviewed Publications:
Patocs A, Zhang L, Xu Y, Weber F, Caldes T, Mutter GL, Platzer P, Eng C.
Breast-cancer stromal cells with TP53 mutations and nodal metastases. N Engl
J Med 2007; 357:2543-51. [PMID 18094375] Read more at The Washington Post
HealthDay here.
Assié G, LaFramboise T, Platzer P, Eng C. High frequency of germline genomic
homozygosity associated with cancer cases. JAMA 2008; 299:1437-45. [PMID
18364486] Read more in this article in The Washington Post
Bennett KL, Mester J, Eng C. Germline epigenetic regulation of KILLIN in Cowden and Cowden-like syndromes. JAMA 2010; 304:2724-31. Article in Cleveland Plain Dealer
Tan MH, Mester J, Peterson C, Yang Y, Chen JL, Rybicki LA, Milas K, Pederson H, Remzi B, Orloff MS, Eng C. A proposed clinical scoring system for selection of patients for PTEN mutation testing based on prospective cohort analysis of 3,042 probands. Am J Hum Genet 2011; 88: 42-56.
Orloff MS, Peterson C, He X, Ganapathi S, Heald B, Yang YR, Bebek G, Romigh T, Song JH, Wu W, David S, Cheng Y, Meltzer SJ, Eng C. Germline Mutations in MSR1, ASCC1 and CTHRC1 in Individuals with Barrett Esophagus and/or Esophageal Adenocarcinoma. JAMA 2011; 306:410-9.
(go to publications page)