Research Summary

Johannes R. Kratz, M.D., is the Division Chief and an Associate Professor of Thoracic Surgery at UCSF. He is board-certified in thoracic surgery and specializes in treating disorders of the lung, esophagus, and mediastinum. He serves as Medical Director of Robotic Surgery at UCSF, Director of Robotic and Advanced Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery, and Program Director of the Thoracic Surgery Residency Program. He holds the Van Auken Endowed Chair in Thoracic Oncology at UCSF.

Dr. Kratz’s research interests include mechanisms of recurrence in early-stage lung and esophageal cancer, the development of biomarkers to personalize treatment, and immunotherapy approaches for thoracic tumors. His current work focuses on understanding the molecular and genetic profiles of high-risk early-stage tumors and developing targeted therapies to treat them. As a surgical research fellow in the UCSF Thoracic Oncology Laboratory, he developed a prognostic test that more accurately predicts outcomes for patients with early-stage lung cancer. Now available in clinical practice, this test has improved outcomes for patients with high-risk disease detected at an early stage.

After attending Stanford University, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Philosophy, Dr. Kratz completed his medical degree at Harvard Medical School, graduating magna cum laude. He then completed a general surgery residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by a cardiothoracic surgery fellowship at UCSF.

Dr. Kratz is an active member of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the American College of Surgeons, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the UCSF Health Exceptional Physician Award (2017), the AATS Michael E. DeBakey Research Scholarship (2019), the Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators Excellence in Teaching Award (2019 and 2023), and the UCSF Cardiothoracic Surgery Faculty Teaching Award (2021).

Research Funding

  • July 1, 2020 - June 30, 2022 - Immune Phenotypes of High-Risk Early Stage Lung Adenocarcinoma , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: American Association of Thoracic Surgery, Sponsor Award ID:
  • August 1, 2019 - July 31, 2021 - CoProject Pilot in Early-Stage Lung Cancer , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: Bakar ImmunoX Foundation, Sponsor Award ID:
  • June 3, 2020 - June 2, 2021 - COVID-19 Related Rapid Research Pilot Initiative , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: University of California, San Francisco, Sponsor Award ID:
  • October 19, 2019 - September 30, 2020 - Lung Cancer Tumor Immune Microenvironments , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, Sponsor Award ID:

Education

Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, B.A. (with Distinction), 06/1999, Philosophy
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, B.S. (with Honors with Distinction), 06/1999, Biological Sciences
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, M.A., 06/2000, Philosophy
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, M.D. (Magna cum laude), 06/2006
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, Residency, 06/2014, General Surgery
University of California, San Francisco, CA, Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship, 06/2011, Thoracic Oncology
University of California, San Francisco, CA, Fellowship, 06/2017, Cardiothoracic Surgery

Honors & Awards

  • 2005
    Soma Weiss Scholar Award, Harvard Medical School
  • 2006
    John E. Thayer Scholarship Award, Harvard Medical School
  • 2010
    Willard M. Daggett Award, Massachusetts General Hospital
  • 2011
    President's Conference Selection, World Conference on Lung Cancer, International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer
  • 2012
    First Place, Oral Presentation, Harvard Medical School Surgery Research Conference, Harvard Medical School
  • 2012
    Partners HealthCare Resident/Fellow as Teacher Award (awarded to one resident among all specialties across all eleven Partners HealthCare hospitals), Partners HealthCare
  • 2017
    UCSF Health Exceptional Physician Award (awarded for Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Diversity and Excellence), UCSF
  • 2018
    Van Auken Endowed Chair in Thoracic Oncology, University of California, San Francisco
  • 2019
    Hellman Family Clinical-Translational Research Development Award, Bakar ImmunoX Initiative
  • 2019
    Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators Excellence in Teaching Award (awarded for Medical Student education), UCSF
  • 2019
    Michael DeBakey Research Scholarship (awarded to a single North American surgeon committed to pursuing an academic career in cardiothoracic surgery)

Selected Publications

  1. T. Brown, M. Gubens, C. Mulvey, J. Kratz, J. Rotow, T. Patil, J. Riess, C. Blakely. P1.07.40 Detection of ctDNA Prior to Neoadjuvant Osimertinib Treatment Correlates With Decreased EFS in EGFR-Mutated NSCLC. View on PubMed
  2. Spigel DR, Westeel V, Anderson IC, Greillier L, Guisier F, Bylicki O, Badin FB, Rousseau-Bussac G, Deldycke C, Griesinger F, Bograd A, Zhong W, Le Treut J, Van Hulst S, Gandara DR, Reck M, Hoffknecht P, Gubens MA, Crowley J, von der Leyen H, Woodard GA, Jablons DM, Kratz JR, Mann MJ, AIM-HIGH investigators. Adjuvant chemotherapy for stage IA-IIA non-squamous, non-small-cell lung cancer identified as molecular high-risk by a 14-gene expression profile (AIM-HIGH): an international, randomised, phase 3 trial. View on PubMed
  3. David R. Spigel, Virginie Westeel, Ian Churchill Anderson, Laurent Greillier, Florian Guisier, Olivier Bylicki, Firas Benyamine Badin, Gaelle Rousseau-Bussac, Clotilde Deldycke, Frank Griesinger, Adam Bograd, Wangjian Zhong, Matthew A. Gubens, John Crowley, Heiko von der Leyen, Gavitt Alida Woodard, Johannes Ruediger Kratz, David Jablons, Michael Mann. An international, multicenter, prospective randomized trial of adjuvant chemotherapy for stage Ia-IIa non-small cell lung cancer identified as high-risk by a 14-gene molecular assay. View on PubMed
  4. Tawil ME, Chryssikos T, Theologis AA, Kratz J, Mummaneni PV. Letter: Commentary: Trans-Sternal Multilevel Corpectomy for Cervicothoracic Renal Cell Metastasis: 2-Dimensional Operative Video. Oper Neurosurg (Hagerstown). 2024 Dec 01; 27(6):795. View on PubMed
  5. Whitney Tamaki, Daniel L. Kerr, Wei Wu, Grant Eilers, Anatoly Urisman, Yu-Ting Chou, Philippe Gui, Shigeki Nanjo, Johannes R. Kratz, David M. Jablons, Trever G. Bivona, Collin M. Blakely. Abstract C025: Identification of cell-cell signaling programs across the tumor-tumor microenvironment ecosystem and associated with clinical status in neoadjuvant osimertinib treated patient samples revealed by spatial profiling. Cancer Research. 2024 Nov 17; 84(22_Supplement):c025-c025. View on PubMed
  6. S.D. Merajver, A. Udager, A. Qin, L. Bao, X. Cheng, H. Madhi, L. Goo, V. Kathawate, P. Ulintz, A. Liu, H. Serhan, V. Navani, J. Jefferies, M.S. Ali, M. Monument, J. Kratz, A. Smith, M. Soellner, N. Merrill. 8P Precision medicine drug testing platform to guide the treatment of EML4-ALK fusion lung cancers. ESMO Open. 2024 Oct 1; 9:103754. View on PubMed
  7. Sofia Diana Merajver, Aaron M Udager, Angel Qin, Kiran Lagisetty, Liwei Bao, Xu Cheng, Hamadi Madhi, Laura Goo, Varun Kathawate, Peter Ulintz, Albert Liu, Habib Serhan, Vishal Navani, John L. Jefferies, Muhammad Sajawal Ali, Michael Monument, Johannes Ruediger Kratz, Amber Smith, Matthew Soellner, Nathan Merrill. Precision medicine-based platform to guide the treatment of EML4-ALK driven lung cancers and other NSCLC in real time. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2024 Aug 10; 42(23_suppl):215-215. View on PubMed
  8. Blakely CM, Urisman A, Gubens MA, Mulvey CK, Allen GM, Shiboski SC, Rotow JK, Chakrabarti T, Kerr DL, Aredo JV, Bacaltos B, Gee M, Tan L, Jones KD, Devine WP, Doebele RC, Aisner DL, Patil T, Schenk EL, Bivona TG, Riess JW, Coleman M, Kratz JR, Jablons DM. Neoadjuvant Osimertinib for the Treatment of Stage I-IIIA Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor-Mutated Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Phase II Multicenter Study. J Clin Oncol. 2024 Sep 10; 42(26):3105-3114. View on PubMed
  9. NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery, STARSurg Collaborative. A prognostic model for use before elective surgery to estimate the risk of postoperative pulmonary complications (GSU-Pulmonary Score): a development and validation study in three international cohorts. Lancet Digit Health. 2024 Jul; 6(7):e507-e519. View on PubMed
  10. Tawil ME, Chryssikos T, Sorour O, Ambati VS, Jamieson A, Theologis AA, Kratz J, Mummaneni PV. Trans-Sternal Multilevel Corpectomy for Cervicothoracic Renal Cell Metastasis: 2-Dimensional Operative Video. Oper Neurosurg (Hagerstown). 2024 Jul 01; 27(1):120. View on PubMed
  11. Joel L. Ramirez, Johannes R. Kratz. Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction and Precision Medicine. Advances in Medical Imaging, Detection, and Diagnosis. 2023 Sep 6; 473-485. View on PubMed
  12. Dengue Alliance. Electronic address: [email protected], Dengue Alliance. Treatments for dengue: a Global Dengue Alliance to address unmet needs. Lancet Glob Health. 2023 11; 11(11):e1680-e1681. View on PubMed
  13. Murillo AD, Kratz JR. PET Standardized Uptake Value May Influence Surgical Planning for Clinical Stage IA Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. Ann Thorac Surg. 2024 05; 117(5):1024. View on PubMed
  14. Jacqueline V. Aredo, Anatoly Urisman, Matthew A. Gubens, Claire Mulvey, Greg M. Allen, Julia K. Rotow, Daniel Lucas Kerr, Turja Chakrabarti, Bianca Bacaltos, Megan Gee, Kirk Jones, Dara L. Aisner, Tejas Patil, Erin Lynn Schenk, Trever G. Bivona, Jonathan W. Riess, Melissa Coleman, Johannes Ruediger Kratz, David Jablons, Collin M. Blakely. Phase II trial of neoadjuvant osimertinib for surgically resectable EGFR -mutated non-small cell lung cancer. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2023 Jun 1; 41(16_suppl):8508-8508. View on PubMed
  15. Hu KH, Kuhn NF, Courau T, Tsui J, Samad B, Ha P, Kratz JR, Combes AJ, Krummel MF. Transcriptional space-time mapping identifies concerted immune and stromal cell patterns and gene programs in wound healing and cancer. Cell Stem Cell. 2023 06 01; 30(6):885-903.e10. View on PubMed
  16. P. Jonathan Li, Jessica Tsui, Vivianne W. Ding, Alexis J. Combes, Matthew F. Krummel, David M. Jablons, Johannes R. Kratz. 287 Genomic and Immunologic Characterization of Lung Adenocarcinoma in Never Smokers vs. Smokers. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. 2023 Apr 24; 7(s1):86-86. View on PubMed
  17. Woodard GA, Ding V, Cho C, Brand NR, Kratz JR, Jones KD, Jablons DM. Comparative genomics between matched solid and lepidic portions of semi-solid lung adenocarcinomas. Lung Cancer. 2023 06; 180:107211. View on PubMed
  18. Hysenaj L, Little S, Kulhanek K, Magnen M, Bahl K, Gbenedio OM, Prinz M, Rodriguez L, Andersen C, Rao AA, Shen A, Lone JC, Lupin-Jimenez LC, Bonser LR, Serwas NK, Mick E, Khalid MM, Taha TY, Kumar R, Li JZ, Ding VW, Matsumoto S, Maishan M, Sreekumar B, Simoneau C, Nazarenko I, Tomlinson MG, Khan K, von Gottberg A, Sigal A, Looney MR, Fragiadakis GK, Jablons DM, Langelier CR, Matthay M, Krummel M, Erle DJ, Combes AJ, Sil A, Ott M, Kratz JR, Roose JP. SARS-CoV-2 infection of airway organoids reveals conserved use of Tetraspanin-8 by Ancestral, Delta, and Omicron variants. Stem Cell Reports. 2023 03 14; 18(3):636-653. View on PubMed
  19. Abbasi AB, Alcon A, Patel A, Gesthalter Y, Hoffman W, Kratz J. Tracheal Reconstruction Using Endotracheal Stent and Pectoralis Major Muscle Flap. Ann Thorac Surg Short Rep. 2023 Mar; 1(1):118-120. View on PubMed
  20. Fotopoulou C, Khan T, Bracinik J, Glasbey J, Abu-Rustum N, Chiva L, Fagotti A, Fujiwara K, Ghebre R, Gutelkin M, Konney TO, Ng J, Pareja R, Kottayasamy Seenivasagam R, Sehouli J, Surappa STS, Bhangu A, Leung E, Sundar S, CovidSurg Gynecological Cancer Collaborators. Outcomes of gynecologic cancer surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic: an international, multicenter, prospective CovidSurg-Gynecologic Oncology Cancer study. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2022 Nov; 227(5):735.e1-735.e25. View on PubMed

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