Charlotte Ling PhD

Dr. Charlotte Ling is a Professor at Lund University and a principal investigator of the Epigenetics and Diabetes Unit at Lund University Diabetes Centre (LUDC), Sweden. She obtained her Ph.D. in Endocrinology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden in 2002. After a postdoc 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 over the last two decades pioneered the field of epigenetics in type 2 diabetes. They 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 non-diabetic control subjects. Dr. Ling’s research group has also shown that genetic and non-genetic factors such as SNPs, exercise, diet, obesity, and age alter the genome-wide epigenetic pattern in human primary tissues for type 2 diabetes. Dr. Ling is frequently invited to write review papers and book chapters and to give lectures (e.g. ADA, IDF, Keystone, and Endocrine Society) on the topic ‘Epigenetics in Type 2 Diabetes. She is still dissecting the impact of epigenetics on the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes. More recently, she is trying to translate her epigenetic findings to biomarkers and novel therapies for precision medicine to improve the prediction, prevention, and treatment of type 2 diabetes.