Charis Eng

Eng was born in Singapore 1962 and grew up in Bristol, England. She started studying at the University of Chicago aged 16.[1] She earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Biology in 1986 and her M.D. in 1988, both from the Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago. Then specialising in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston and trained in medical oncology at Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Eng then 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 Prof Sir Bruce Ponder. Eng returned to the Farber as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the end of 1995, 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 bestowed 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 became the Klotz Endowed Chair[3]

Eng was recruited to the Cleveland Clinic in 2005, and was founding director of the Cleveland Clinic's Genomic Medicine Institute and the Center for Personalized Genetic Healthcare, and professor and vice chair of the Department of Genetics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.[4]

Outside of the lab, Eng acted as the primary genetics consultant to the Discovery Health Channel documentary "Curse of the Elephant Man", which traced the genetic causes of the Joseph Merrick's disfiguring disorder.[5][6]

Eng additionally has sat on many boards including a 3-year term on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Human Genetics, a 2-year term as Chair of the Clinical Science Committee of the Personalised Medicine Coalition and a 5-year term on the Board of Scientific Directors of the National Human Genome Research Institute. Eng was appointed to the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society (2009–11).  She also was co-chair of their Task Force to examine whole genome sequencing for clinical application, and serves on the Expert Panel of the WHO Grand Challenges Project on Public Health Genomics in Developing Countries.[3]

The Eng lab currently identifies and characterises genes that are thought to cause susceptibility to inherited cancer syndromes, determining their role in random carcinogenesis and analyses their molecular epidemiology as they relate to clinical applications.[7] This framework allowed her team to elucidate the function of PTEN mutations in Cowden Syndrome, an inherited condition that increases the risk of certain cancers in humans.[4][8][9]

Eng has received numerous awards and honours including election to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, a Fellow of AAAS, and the Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award. Eng received the 2005 ATA Van Meter Award, 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 Honour, 2014 James Ewing Lecturer of the Society of Surgical Oncology and the 2014 AACR-WICR Charlotte Friend Memorial Lecturer. In 2018 Eng was awarded a Medal of Honour for Clinical Research by the American Cancer Society "for her leadership in personalized care, translating genomic and cellular analysis to clinical practice."[10] Eng has also received the Stefanie Spielman Breast Cancer Research Award.[1]