Charlotte Ling is a Professor in Diabetes Research at Lund University, Sweden, and a principal investigator in the Epigenetics and Diabetes Unit at Lund University Diabetes Centre (LUDC). She obtained her PhD in endocrinology at the University of Gothenburg in 2002.
After a postdoctorate at Lund University, where she studied the genetics of type 2 diabetes, she dedicated her research to the study of epigenetic mechanisms causing type 2 diabetes and metabolic disease. Her research group has pioneered the field of epigenetics in type 2 diabetes and have made several groundbreaking discoveries, such as genome-wide epigenetic modifications in pancreatic islets, skeletal muscle, adipose tissue and the liver from patients with type 2 diabetes compared with control subjects without diabetes.
Her research group has also shown that genetic and non-genetic factors such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), exercise, diet, obesity and age alter the genome-wide epigenetic pattern in human primary tissues for type 2 diabetes.
She is frequently invited to write review papers and book chapters, and to give lectures on the topic of epigenetics in type 2 diabetes by, for example, the American Diabetes Association (ADA), International Diabetes Federation (IDF), Keystone Symposia and the Endocrine Society.
Professor Ling is still dissecting the impact of epigenetics in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes. More recently, she has been trying to translate her epigenetic findings to biomarkers and novel therapies for precision medicine to improve prediction, prevention and treatments of type 2 diabetes.
She has been awarded research grants from numerous national and international foundations, including a ten-year ‘Distinguished Professor Award’ from the Swedish Research Council, a five-year Novo Nordisk ‘Distinguished Investigator Grant’ in endocrinology and metabolism and grants from the European Commission (Horizon 2020 and European Research Council).
Professor Ling has published numerous papers in leading scientific journals. Notable recent publications include ‘Novel subgroups of type 2 diabetes display different epigenetic patterns that associate with future diabetic complications’ in 2022 in Diabetes Care, ‘VPS39-deficiency observed in type 2 diabetes impairs muscle stem cell differentiation via altered autophagy and epigenetics’ in 2021 in Nature Communications and ‘Epigenetic markers associated with metformin response and intolerance in drug-naïve patients with type 2 diabetes’ in Science Translational Medicine, 2020.
Duality of Interest: None declared
Date: Winter 2022