Professor
William D. Jordan, Jr. M.D., Endowed Professor in Vascular Sciences

Areas of Interest
angiogenesis, cancer, endothelial cell and vascular biology, epigenetics, epitranscriptomics, gene transcription and translation, ischemic heart and vascular diseases, vascular niche in stem cells

Biography

Dr. Bin Ren is a tenured Associate Professor of Surgery and an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Medicine, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He is also a faculty member of UAB Graduate School, a primary member and scientist at the UAB Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC), a senior scientist in the Diabetes Research Center of the UAB Comprehensive Diabetes Center, and a scientist at the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB, as well as a member of the UAB Integrative Center for Aging Research (ICAR).

Dr. Ren received his Bachelor of Art degree from Anhui Normal University, his Medical Degree from Anhui Medical University, and his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He has completed a three year postdoctoral fellowship with Drs Roya Khosravi-far and Jack Lawler at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ren then worked as a research fellow with Dr. Helen Vlassara at Mount Sinai School of Medicine Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Adult Development and a research associate with Dr. Michael Simons at Angiogenesis Research Center and Departments of Medicine and Pharmacology and Toxicology at Dartmouth Medical School and a staff research associate with Dr. Roy Silverstein in the Department of Cell Biology at the Cleveland Clinic. Before joining the faculty of UAB, he was an assistant professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin and an assistant investigator in the Blood Research Institute at the BloodCenter of Wisconsin. Dr. Ren has worked on endothelial cell and vascular biology in the context of cardiovascular disease, cancers and diabetes for over 20 years and has authored more than 60 journal articles, chapters, and scientific abstracts, with numerous presentations at national and international meetings, as well as academic institutions.

Dr. Ren has served on editorial boards of Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology (Signaling, an associate editor), Frontiers in Bioscience, and Discoveries, and as an ad hoc reviewer for many prestigious biomedical journals such as Journal of Clinical Investigation, ATVB, PLOS Medicine and Science Signaling. He is also an associate editor of Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine (Therapeutics). As a leading guest editor, Dr. Ren has recently co-edited with Dr. Ramani Ramchandran at Medical College of Wisconsin and Dr. Xiaofeng Yang at Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Temple University a Research Topic in the Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology: "Molecular Mechanisms and Signaling in Endothelial Cell Biology and Vascular Heterogeneity."

He has been elected an AHA Fellow in Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, is a life member of the Chinese American Academy of Cardiology, and a member of American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). He has also served as a member on several peer reviewer panels in the American Heart Association (AHA) since 2009, the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) External Reviewers Exchange Consortium (USA), and the Medical Research Council (MRC) in the United Kingdom (UK). Dr. Ren is a committee member of the AHA/Allen Initiative in Brain Health and Cognitive Impairment (Review Panels). He also serves on an NIH study section.

Dr. Ren actively participates in academic services and educational programs in addition to conducting his biomedical research. As a principle investigator, his research has been supported by the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the Central Society for Clinical and Translational Research, the Ann’s Hope Foundation, and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). He is currently leading an innovative research program exploring endothelial differentiation and angiogenesis in cardiovascular diseases and cancers. The research in his laboratory focuses on the epigenetic and transcriptional regulation of angiogenesis and arteriogenesis as these processes are involved in cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, neurological disorders, and obesity.

Selected Publications

1. Ren B*. FoxO1 transcriptional activities in VEGF expression and beyond: a key regulator in functional angiogenesis? Journal of Pathology, 2018 Apr 24. doi: 10.1002/path.5088 [Epub ahead of print] (Invited Commentary).
2. Best B, Moran P, Ren B*. VEGF/PKD-1 signaling mediates arteriogenic gene expression and angiogenic responses in reversible human microvascular endothelial cells with extended lifespan. Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry 2018 Jan 29. doi: 10.1007/s11010-018-3286-z. [Epub ahead of print].
3. Xu S, Zhu W, Wan Y, Wang JB, Chen X, Pi L, Lobo MK, Ren B, Ying Z, Morris M, Cao Q*. Decreased Taurine and Creatine in the Thalamus May Relate to Behavioral Impairments in Ethanol-Fed Mice: A Pilot Study of Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. Molecular Imaging, 2018; 17: 1536012117749051.
4. Baek KI, Packard RRS, Hsu JJ, Saffari A, Ma Z, Luu AP, Pietersen A, Yen H, Ren B, Ding Y, Sioutas C, Li R, Hsiai TK*. Ultrafine Particles Exposure Reveals the Importance of FOXO1/Notch Activation Complex for Vascular Regeneration. Antioxidants & Redox Signaling, 2018; 28(13):1209-1223.
5. Dong L, Yuan Y, Opansky C, Chen Y, Aguilera-Barrantes I, Wu S, Yuan R, Cao Q, Cheng YC, Sahoo D, Silverstein RL, Ren B *. Diet-induced obesity links to ER positive breast    cancer progression via LPA/PKD-1-CD36 signaling-mediated microvascular remodeling.  Oncotarget, 2017; 8(14): 22550–22562.
6. Ren B*, Best B, Ramakrishnan D, Walcott B, Storz P, Silverstein R. LPA/PKD-1-FoxO1 signaling axis mediates endothelial cell CD36 transcriptional repression, proangiogenic and proarteriogenic reprogramming. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol, 2016; 36:1197-1208 (Chosen for cover).
7. Bin Ren*. Protein kinase D1 signaling in angiogenic gene expression and VEGF-mediated angiogenesis. Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, 2016; 4: 37 (invited review).
8. Hale JS, Otvos B, Sinyuk M, Alvarado AG, Hitomi M, Stoltz K, Wu Q, Flavahan W, Levison B, Johansen ML, Schmitt D, Neltner JM, Huang P, Ren B, Sloan AE, Silverstein RL, Gladson CL, DiDonato JA, Brown JM, McIntyre T, Hazen SL, Horbinski C, Rich JN, Lathia JD*. Cancer stem cell-specific scavenger receptor CD36 drives glioblastoma progression. Stem Cells 2014; 32(7):1746-58.
9. Chen Y, Devi P, Ren B*. Regulation of angiogenesis by phospholipid lysophosphatidic acid. Frontiers in Bioscience, 2013; 18:852-61(invited review).
10. Ren B, Hale J, Srikanthan S, Roy Silverstein*. Lysophosphatidic acid suppresses endothelial cell CD36 expression and promotes angiogenesis via a PKD-1 dependent signaling pathway. Blood 2011; 117:6036-6045.
11. Ren B, Deng Y, Mukhopadhyay A, Lanahan AA, Zhuang ZW, Moodie KL, Mulligan-Kehoe MJ, Byzova TV, Peterson RT, Simons M*. Erk1/2-Akt1 cross-talk-dependent regulation of arteriogenesis. Journal of Clinical Investigation 2010; 120 (4):1217–1228.
12. Hermans K, Claes F, Vandevelde W, Zheng W, Geudens I, Orsenigo F, De Smet F, Gjini E, Anthonis K, Ren B, Kerjaschki D, Autiero M, Ny A, Simons M, Dewerchin M, Schulte-Merker S, Dejana E, Alitalo K, Carmeliet P*. Role of synectin in lymphatic development in Zebrafish and frogs. Blood 2010; 116 (17): 3356-3366.
13. Ren B, Song K, Parangi S, Jin T, Ye M, Humphreys R, Duquette M, Zhang X, Benhaga N, Lawler J, Khosravi-Far R*. A double hit to kill tumor and endothelial cells by TRAIL and antiangiogenic 3TSR. Cancer Research 2009; 69 (9): 3856–65.
14. Ren B, Yee KO, Lawler J, Khosravi-Far R*. Regulation of tumor angiogenesis by thrombospondin-1. Biochimca et Biophysica Acta 2006; 1765 (2): 178-188 (invited review).
15. Liu H, Zheng F, Li Z, Uribarri J, Ren B, Hutter R, Tunstead JR, Badimon J, Striker GE, Vlassara H. Amelioration of oxidant stress by the defensin, lysozyme. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 2006; 290(5):824-32.  
16. Liu H, Zheng F, Li Z, Uribarri J, Ren B, Hutter R, Tunstead JR, Badimon J, Striker GE, Vlassara H. Reduced acute vascular injury and atherosclerosis in hyperlipidemic mice transgenic for lysozyme. Am J Pathol. 2006; 169(1):303-13.

Note: *Corresponding author

Education

M.D.
Anhui Medical College, Hefei, China
Bachelor of Medicine

Ph.D.
School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (Chinese Academy of Science)
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Fellowship
Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts  
Angiogenesis and Cancer Biology, Molecular Pathology

Fellowship
Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Adult Development, Division of Experimental Diabetes and Aging, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York
Research Fellow

Contact

Campus Address
WTI 630A

Phone
Patient Appointments and Questions: 205-934-2003
Academic Office: 205-934-2006

Email
bren@uabmc.edu