Maria Eriksson

Maria Eriksson

Professor | Docent
Visiting address: Blickagången 16, 14152 Flemingsberg
Postal address: H7 Medicin, Huddinge, H7 BioNut Eriksson, 171 77 Stockholm

About me

  • Maria Eriksson has discovered the gene that causes premature ageing in children. She is now researching the general genetic causes of ageing and has shown, amongst other things, that our stem cells gather more mutations during our lives than previously known.

Research

  • “I am studying genetic mechanisms for ageing. We recently showed that stem cells in the muscles of healthy elderly people contain an unexpected number of mutations. There may be thousands of changes in the DNA in a single cell. We can also see clear patterns in this mutation load, as it is known, where certain regions of the genome are more protected. We are now working on publishing similar results for kidney, fat and skin stem cells.

    Another line of research is studying by experiment how the disease progeria, premature ageing, expresses itself in cells in the skeleton, blood vessels, fat and skin. I have been researching progeria for a long time and discovered the genetic causes of the disease in 2003. We are now using progeria as a model to help us understand the mechanisms of ageing.”

Articles

All other publications

Employments

  • Professor, Department of Medicine, Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet, 2024-

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, Karolinska Institutet, 2010
  • Doctor Of Philosophy, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2001

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