Welcome Dr. Wenran Ren

We would like to welcome Dr. Wenran Ren, to the CPIN Program. Wenran Ren is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lunenfeld Tanenbaum Research Institute, University of Toronto, working in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel Drucker. Her research focuses on understanding how central glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor signaling regulates systemic inflammation and metabolic physiology. Wenran completed her PhD in Biology at Institute for Immunology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tsinghua University, where she studied mucosal immunology and the metabolic regulation of the intestines by sympathetic nervous activity. Her doctoral work identified a sympathetic nerve and enteroendocrine L cell unit that modulates GLP-1 secretion and cognitive outcomes, providing new insights into gut brain communication and metabolic homeostasis. She earned her BS in Biology from Nankai University as part of the Poling Class National Training Program for life sciences. She is broadly interested in neuroimmune and metabolic cross talk, with the long-term goal of understanding how neural circuits influence inflammation and metabolic disease.