Expanding our research toolbox

Dr. Bing Ren is a professor of cellular and molecular medicine at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD). As a member of the NIH Common Fund’s 4D Nucleome (4DN) program, Dr. Ren’s research team is developing new experimental techniques and computational methods to help us understand how all of our DNA – our genome – is organized in 3-dimensional space inside the nucleus of each of our cells. His team is also exploring how that organization changes over time, the fourth dimension. Dr. Ren hopes to uncover what changes in genome architecture mean for our health. This is no easy task. The research team is learning how to make purposeful changes to genome architecture in the nuclei of a variety of cell types and laboratory model systems. Observing how these changes affect cell function will help the 4DN program relate specific features of genome architecture to normal development and disease.

Dr. Ren’s interest in the field of genomic architecture and gene regulation started when he was a graduate student, and that interest never left him. He began working on how cells control which genes are turned on or off in different insects, such as fruit flies, and other cellular models and has applied concepts from that research to new research models for the 4DN program. In our interview, Dr. Ren spoke of how excited he is to be part of the 4DN program. “It is a great opportunity to interact with other researchers working in the same field, but now with a more organized network setting.” The program was designed so that its participating research groups could apply different tools to the same set of biological materials to provide a broader and more cohesive understanding of the genome features identified by those tools. This benchmarking process will allow scientists across the world to obtain a more holistic picture of the importance of genomic architecture and its role in human health and disease.