Speakers
Eriksson, Maria
- Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
Maria Eriksson is a Professor in molecular genetics, focusing on aging, at the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. Her research interests are the genetic mechanisms of aging and the identification of treatments for aging and age-associated disease. She completed her PhD in neurology at Karolinska Institutet in 2001, and thereafter moved on to a postdoc at the National Institutes of Health, US, with Dr Francis Collins. During her postdoc she identified the cause for Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome. This study opened-up for a new research area implicating the nucleus and lamina in premature aging. In 2003 she returned to Sweden and Karolinska Institutet to start her research group. The major focus of the lab was the study of progeria, developing conditional mouse models and testing of various forms of treatments. In 2014 she broadened her research focus to somatic mutations in aging and age-associated disease. Today the lab uses whole-genome DNA and single-cell sequencing technologies to identify somatic mutations in human cells and tissues, as well as lineage tracing in mouse models to study clonal propagation and functional implications of somatic mutations. The current focus is to map somatic mutations in the arterial wall in aging and age-related disease, including atherosclerosis, and chronic kidney disease