Xi Ren
Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Courtesy Appointment, Mechanical Engineering
Xi (Charlie) Ren was trained as a developmental biologist during his graduate study focusing on the vascular and hematopoietic systems. Moving from vascular development to vascular engineering, he joined the Laboratory for Organ Engineering and Regeneration at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in 2012. He became Instructor in Surgery at Harvard Medical School in 2016. During this time, he developed systematic strategies for engineering functional vasculature based on decellularized organ scaffolds. He joined the faculty of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in 2017.
Controlling Tissue Morphogenesis to Inform Better Lung Treatment
Demonstration: Decellularizing a Lung Using Detergent Perfusion
Engineering Organ-Specific Vasculature
Education
2011 Ph.D., Cell Biology, Peking University
2005 BS, Biological Science, Peking University
Research Interests
Media mentions
National Institutes of Health
Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. student receives $49k grant award
BME’s Dhruv Bhattaram, a second-year Ph.D. student, received $49k from the NIH to advance research on the development and application of lung epithelial organoids called apical-out airway organoids (AoAOs). Bhattaram has been part of BME’s Charlie Ren’s group, and as PI, he will partner with ChemE’s Coty Jen, MechE’s Amir Barati Farimani, and Pitt’s Kong Chen to present AoAOs as a next-generation theragnostic platform targeted towards airway health and cilia pathophysiology.
CMU Engineering
CMU-led project to fight obesity, Type 2 diabetes receives ARPA-H backing
A CMU-led team of researchers has secured an award of up to $34.9 million from ARPA-H to develop a new bioelectric medicine-based treatment for obesity and Type 2 diabetes patients.
NASA
BME alumna selected for next simulated Mars journey
Piyumi Wijesekara, a CMU BME alumna, has been selected by NASA to be one of four participants taking a simulated mission to Mars within a habitat at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NIH
New grant weaves a silk-based partnership
BME’s Charlie Ren and Phil Campbell have received a five-year, $3.5 million Bioengineering Partnerships with Industry (BPI) grant from the NIH, in partnership with David Vorp of the University of Pittsburgh.
CMU Engineering
Safety first: DNA armor protects regenerative medicine
Using DNA origami, researchers in Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering have developed a synthetic cell armor to protect cells during the stress of clinical practice.
CMU Engineering
Bringing donor organs back to life
A new platform aims to discover novel biomarkers to evaluate organ quality after donation, but before transplantation, and reveal new therapeutic targets to improve donor organ function.
University of Pittsburgh
Campbell and Ren join American Heart Association award project team
The American Heart Association’s 2023 Collaborative Sciences Award will be investigated by a multi-institutional team of researchers, including BME’s Phil Campbell and Charlie Ren.
CMU Engineering
3D micro-ice printing for medical applications
Carnegie Mellon researchers receive funding from the Manufacturing Futures Institute to continue work on 3D micro-ice printing for medical applications.
CMU Engineering
2023 Dean’s Early Career Fellows announced
Xi (Charlie) Ren, Victoria Webster-Wood, and Ding Zhao have received the honor for their contributions to their respective fields.
Ren and Yerneni honored with BMES-CMBE Awards
The Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) recently announced its 2023 Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (CMBE) award winners, and two Carnegie Mellon engineers were named recipients. BME’s Charlie Ren, was selected for the CMBE Rising Star Award. Sai Yerneni, a former biomedical engineering Ph.D. student who is continuing his research as a chemical engineering postdoc, received the CMBE Graduate Student Travel Award.
CMU Engineering
Halilaj and Ren receive NSF Career Awards
College of Engineering’s Eni Halilaj and Charlie Ren have received National Science Foundation CAREER Awards for their research.
Northeast Bioengineering Conference
Ren accepts New Innovator Award at Northeast Bioengineering Conference
BME’s Charlie Ren was awarded the New Innovator Award for Junior Faculty at the 48th annual Northeast Bioengineering Conference hosted at Columbia University. Ren’s lab works at the interface of biomaterial and stem cell engineering, with the goal of providing regenerative therapeutic solutions to repair or replace damaged tissues and organs.