Dr. Ren studies the structure and function of biomolecules, with pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. Ren’s research team uses a range of computational tools to study the structure, dynamics and interactions of proteins, nucleic acids and other macromolecules, and to search for compounds mimicing and interfering with biomolecues for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Ren is developing a multi-scale modeling technique that allows scientists to efficiently study bimolecular assemblies.

• Q. Wang, Park, J., Devkota, A. K., Cho, E. J., Dalby, K. N., and Ren, P., “Identification and validation of novel PERK inhibitors”, Journal of chemical information and modeling, vol. 54, p. 1467–1475, 2014.
• E. KM, X, M., MA, R., P, R., and LJ, S., “β Sheets Not Required: Combined Experimental and Computational Studies of Self-Assembly and Gelation of the Ester-Containing Analogue of an Fmoc-Dipeptide Hydrogelator”, Langmuir, vol. 13, p. 5287-96, 2014.
• Z. Xia, Bell, D. R., Shi, Y., and Ren, P., “RNA 3D Structure Prediction by Using a Coarse-Grained Model and Experimental Data”, The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, vol. 117, p. 3135-3144, 2013.
• P. Ren, Chun, J., Thomas, D. G., Schnieders, M. J., Marucho, M., Zhang, J., and Baker, N. A., “Biomolecular electrostatics and solvation: a computational perspective”, Quarterly reviews of biophysics, vol. 45, p. 427-491, 2012.
• D. Jiao, Golubkov, P. A., Darden, T. A., and Ren, P., “Calculation of protein–ligand binding free energy by using a polarizable potential”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 105, p. 6290-6295, 2008.