The 3D genome organization and long-range control of gene expression

The long-term objective of the Ren lab’s research is to understand the gene regulatory program in mammalian cells. Dr. Ren believes that a thorough understanding of this process will help elucidate the molecular basis of many human diseases and develop effective therapeutics. In the past five years, his lab has focused on the embryonic stem (ES) cells as a model system, and used genomic strategies to study the gene regulatory mechanisms underlying pluripotency and lineage specification. As a member of the NIH ENCODE consortium and the Roadmap Epigenome Consortium, his lab has contributed to the systematic mapping of cis regulatory elements in the human genome, generation of comprehensive epigenome maps, characterization of higher-order chromatin organization in mammalian cells.