Chen Ran, Ph.D.

Chen Ran is assistant professor at The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. He received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Peking University and his Ph.D. in biology from Stanford University. He then completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School.

Ran previously developed an in vivo two-photon mouse brainstem calcium imaging preparation to record the activity of large numbers of neurons in the mouse brainstem that respond to visceral organ stimuli, which enabled the characterization of the coding of internal senses in the brain. As an independent investigator at The Scripps Research Institute, he continues to use imaging and recording approaches to systematically reveal the transformation of neural codes from the medulla to the pons, thalamus, hypothalamus and cortex using neuronal population recordings. Ran and his team aim to understand how the coding of cognitive features of satiety, hunger, thirst, nausea, hypoxia and visceral pain is constructed from the coding of basic physical variables like force, chemicals and osmolarity along the ascending interoceptive circuitry.