Skip to Main Content

Faculty Directory

Back to
Faculty Directory
Jimin Ren, Ph.D.

Jimin Ren, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

School
Medical School
Department
Advanced Imaging Research Center | Radiology
Graduate Programs
Biomedical Engineering
  • Biography

    Dr. Ren’s current research interest is in skeletal muscle energetics and metabolism.  Using non-invasive MRS (1H/13C/31P) techniques, Dr. Ren measures metabolites and their dynamics in resting and activated human muscles, and explores how muscle handles its substrates and metabolites. This fascinating research field integrates NMR physics, physiology, biomechanics and biochemistry.  Working with Drs. Malloy and Sherry, Dr. Ren’s studies focus on answering fundamental questions such as how different metabolic pathways interact and how various metabolites exchange among different cellular compartments and tissues so that energy demand is met while homeostasis is maintained,  as well as identifying the differences between the healthy and the diseased or aged muscles.

  • Education
    Undergraduate
    Dalian University of Tech (1983), Physics
    Graduate School
    Chinese Academy of Sciences-Ch (1991), Chemistry
  • Research Interest
    • in vivo MR spectroscopy
    • Skeletal muscle metabolism
  • Publications

    Star Featured Publications

    Featured
    Exchange kinetics by inversion transfer: Integrated analysis of the phosphorus metabolite kinetic exchanges in resting human skeletal muscle at 7 T.
    Ren J, Yang B, Sherry AD, Malloy CR. Magn Reson Med. 2014
    Featured
    Amplification of the effects of magnetization exchange by 31 P band inversion for measuring adenosine triphosphate synthesis rates in human skeletal muscle.
    Ren J, Sherry AD, Malloy CR. Magn Reson Med. 2014
    Featured
    Noninvasive monitoring of lactate dynamics in human forearm muscle after exhaustive exercise by (1) H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy at 7 tesla.
    Ren J, Dean Sherry A, Malloy CR. Magn Reson Med. 2013 70 2 610-9
    Featured
    Dynamic monitoring of carnitine and acetylcarnitine in the trimethylamine signal after exercise in human skeletal muscle by 7T 1H-MRS.
    Ren J, Lakoski S, Haller RG, Sherry AD, Malloy CR. Magn Reson Med 2012 April 1651-8
    Featured
    1H MRS of intramyocellular lipids in soleus muscle at 7 T: spectral simplification by using long echo times without water suppression.
    Ren J, Sherry AD, Malloy CR. Magn Reson Med 2010 64(3) 1651-8
    Reproducibility and absolute quantification of muscle glycogen in patients with glycogen storage disease by 13C NMR spectroscopy at 7 Tesla.
    Heinicke K, Dimitrov IE, Romain N, Cheshkov S, Ren J, Malloy CR, Haller RG. PLoS One. 2014
    A concentration-independent method to measure exchange rates in PARACEST agents.
    Dixon WT, Ren J, Lubag AJ, Ratnakar J, Vinogradov E, Hancu I, Lenkinski RE, Sherry AD. Magn Reson Med. 2010 63 625-32
    Off-resonance saturation magnetic resonance imaging of superparamagnetic polymeric micelles.
    Khemtong C, Kessinger CW, Togao O, Ren J, Takahashi M, Sherry AD, Gao J. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2009 4095-7
    In vivo off-resonance saturation magnetic resonance imaging of alphavbeta3-targeted superparamagnetic nanoparticles.
    Khemtong C, Kessinger CW, Ren J, Bey EA, Yang SG, Guthi JS, Boothman DA, Sherry AD, Gao J. Cancer Res. 2009 69 1651-8
    Molecular mechanisms of hepatic steatosis and insulin resistance in the AGPAT2-deficient mouse model of congenital generalized lipodystrophy.
    Cortés VA, Curtis DE, Sukumaran S, Shao X, Parameswara V, Rashid S, Smith AR, Ren J, Esser V, Hammer RE, Agarwal AK, Horton JD, Garg A. Cell Metab. 2009 9 165-76