Charis Eng

Charis Eng (17 January 1962 – 13 August 2024) was a Singaporean American physician-scientist and geneticist at the Cleveland Clinic, notable for identifying the PTEN gene. She was the chairwoman and founding director of the Genomic Medicine Institute of the Cleveland Clinic, founding director and attending clinical cancer geneticist of the institute's clinical component, the Center for Personalized Genetic Healthcare, and professor and vice chairwoman of the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Early life and education Eng was born in Singapore in 1962 to Soo Peck Eng, a lecturer at the Singapore Teacher's Training College and Siok Mui Eng. She grew up in Bristol, England. As a teenager, she moved to the United States while her father pursued his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.

Career Eng returned to the Farber as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the end of 1995, and in January 1999, joined The Ohio State University as Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of the Clinical Cancer Genetics Program. In 2001, she was appointed to the Davis Professorship and Co-Director of the Division of Human Genetics in the Department of Internal Medicine. In 2002, she was promoted to Professor and Division Director, holding the Klotz Endowed Chair.

Eng joined the Cleveland Clinic in 2005, and became the founding director of the Cleveland Clinic's Genomic Medicine Institute and the Center for Personalized Genetic Healthcare (CPGH), and Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Within the CPGH, Eng oversaw the PTEN Multidisciplinary Clinic for patient with PTEN-related inherited cancer disorders including Cowden syndrome and Bannayan–Riley–Ruvalcaba syndrome, one of three centers of excellence in the United States designated by the PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome Foundation.

Research Eng was involved in translational research focusing on hereditary cancer syndromes. She was the first to discover a link between mutations in the cancer suppressor gene PTEN and Cowden syndrome, which predispose patients to several types of cancer, including breast, thyroid, uterine, and other cancers. From her research, Eng led the development of clinical practice guidelines in cancer screening in patients with these mutations. Eng was also involved in discovering a link between PTEN and autism, one of the first associations between the latter condition and inherited cancer syndromes.

Her scientific accomplishments have set the practice model for how to apply laboratory-based genetics and genomics in the pre-symptomatic diagnosis, counseling and management of patients and their as-yet unaffected family members. Dr Eng's two major investigative models on RET and related genes in multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 (MEN 2; characterized by medullary thyroid cancer, pheochromocytoma and hyperparathyroidism), and PTEN in Cowden syndrome (high risk of breast and thyroid cancers) have been acknowledged as the paradigm for the practice of clinical cancer genetics.

Eng died in Cleveland on 13 August 2024, at the age of 62.

Awards and honors Elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, 2001 Elected to the Association of American Physicians (AAP), 2004 American Medical Association Women Physicians' Section Mentorship Recognition, 2013