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Department of Surgery »  Faculty »  Adult Cardiothoracic Surgery »  Johannes R. Kratz, M.D.
Johannes R. Kratz, M.D., FACS

Johannes R. Kratz, M.D., FACS

  • Assistant Professor of Surgery
  • Van Auken Endowed Chair in Thoracic Oncology
  • Director, Minimally Invasive and Robotic Thoracic Surgery
  • Medical Director of Robotic Surgery, UCSF Health
  • Director, Thoracic Surgery Residency Program
  • Division of Adult Cardiothoracic Surgery

Contact Information

Academic Office
500 Parnassus Ave., MUW 405, Box 0118
San Francisco, CA 94143
Tel: 415-353-7502
Email: Johannes.Kratz@ucsf.edu
Assistant: Mari.Collings@ucsf.edu
Thoracic Surgery and Oncology Clinic:
1600 Divisadero St., 4th Floor, Box 1674
San Francisco, CA 94115
Clinic:415-885-3882
Fax: 415-353-7151

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Education

M.D. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA., Magna cum laude, 2006

M.A. Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA., Philosophy, 2000

B.S. Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA., Biological Sciences (with Honors with Distinction), 1999

B.A. Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.,Philosophy (with Distinction), 1999

Residencies

  • 6/06-6/14 Resident, Department of General Surgery. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA.

Fellowships

  • ACGME Fellowship in Thoracic Surgery, UCSF, 2014-2017
  • Surgical Robotics Fellowship, American Association of Thoracic Surgery Graham Foundation, Beverly, MA 2015 - 2016
  • Advanced Surgical Robotics Fellowship, University of Alabama, Birmingham (Dr. Cerfolio), 2016

Postdoctoral Training

  • Research Fellow, Thoracic Oncology Laboratory, University of California, San Francisco, 2008-2011
  • Research in Vascular Biology, Dr. Guillermo Garcia-Cardena, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

Board Certifications

  • American Board of Surgery
  • American Board of Thoracic Surgery

Clinical Expertise

Research Interests

  • Inflammation in lung tumorigenesis
  • Molecularly-targeted cancer therapies
  • Prognostic assays for early stage lung cancer

Website Links

Biography

Johannes R. Kratz, M.D. is Director of Minimally Invasive and Robotic Thoracic Surgery and holds the Van Auken Endowed Chair in Thoracic Oncology. Kratz graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School and holds a Masters in Philosophy from Stanford. 

Kratz worked as research fellow in the Thoracic Oncology Lab from 2008-2011 where he played a pivotal role in the development of a prognostic assay for early-stage lung cancer patients. The novel assay was validated in an international clinical trial led by thoracic surgeons David M. Jablons, M.D. and Michael Mann, M.D. The assay better predicted risk of death in early-stage lung cancer patients versus conventional staging guidelines and later successfully identified Stage 1A lung cancer patients who had a very high likelihood of mortality after surgery. Kratz finished his clinical training as a clinical fellow in Thoracic Surgery at UCSF from 2014 - 2017.

Kratz has published numerous papers and has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the Partners Healthcare Resident/Fellow as Teacher Award, Willard M. Daggett Award, Edward Churchill Surgical Research Fellowship, Wyeth Scholarship of the American College of Surgeons, John E. Thayer Scholarship Award, Howard Hughes Medical Fellows Program Continued Support Award, Howard Hughes Medical Student Research Fellowship, and designation as a Soma Weiss Scholar.

Kratz was recently honored with the 2017 UCSF Health Exceptional Physician Award for service during the last year of his clinical fellowship, among 8 winners out of 61 nominees, notably the only clinical fellow at UCSF to receive the award in 2017, and one of only two winners not on the faculty.

Awards & Honors

  Award  
  Confired By    
  Date    
  • Michael DeBakey Research Scholarship
  • American Association for Thoracic Surgery
  • 2019
  • Hellman Family Clinical-Translational Research Development Award
  • Bakar ImmunoX Initiative
  • 2019
  • Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators Excellence in Teaching Award
  • University of California, San Francisco
  • 2019
  • Van Auken Endowed Chair in Thoracic Oncology
  • University of California, San Francisco
  • 2018
  • UCSF Health Exceptional Physician Award
  • University of California, San Francisco
  • 2017
  • First Place, Oral Presentation, Harvard Medical School Surgery Research Conference
  • Harvard Medical School
  • 2012
  • Partners HealthCare Resident/Fellow as Teacher Award
  • Partners HealthCare
  • 2012
  • President's Conference Selection, World Conference on Lung Cancer
  • International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer
  • 2011
  • Willard M. Daggett Award
  • Massachusetts General Hospital
  • 2010
  • Wyeth Scholarship of the American College of Surgeons for the Study of Inflammation
  • Massachusetts General Hospital
  • 2008
  • Aesculapian Club
  • Harvard Medical School
  • 2006
  • John E. Thayer Scholarship Award
  • Harvard Medical School
  • 2006
  • Soma Weiss Scholar Award
  • Harvard Medical School
  • 2005
  • Howard Hughes Research Training Fellowship
  • Harvard Medical School
  • 2004

    • Research Overview

    The Kratz lab focuses on the genetic and immunological mechanisms that drive early-stage, surgically resectable thoracic malignancies. These malignancies include lung cancer, esophageal cancer, and thymic cancer. The lab uses novel high-throughput "-omics" techniques such as genomic DNA and RNA sequencing, proteomics, and metabolomics to unravel the complex nature of early-stage thoracic malignancies. At the same time, the lab actively investigates the complex immunological landscapes that nurture the growth of these malignancies. The knowledge gained from these investigations is being used to identify novel therapeutic targets and therapies for patients with early-stage, yet deadly thoracic malignancies.

    Research & Funding

    Data provided by UCSF Profiles, powered by CTSI
    ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0696-4073 Additional info
    • Immune Phenotypes of High-Risk Early Stage Lung Adenocarcinoma
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      Jul 2020
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      Jun 2022
      Principal Investigator
    • CoProject Pilot in Early-Stage Lung Cancer
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      Aug 2019
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      Jul 2021
      Principal Investigator
    • COVID-19 Related Rapid Research Pilot Initiative
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      Jun 2020
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      Jun 2021
      Principal Investigator
    • Lung Cancer Tumor Immune Microenvironments
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      Oct 2019
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      Sep 2020
      Principal Investigator

    Clinical Trials

    Data provided by UCSF Profiles, powered by CTSI

    Publications

    MOST RECENT PUBLICATIONS FROM A TOTAL OF 69
    Data provided by UCSF Profiles, powered by CTSI
    1. 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 Apr 21; 180:107211. View in PubMed
    2. 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 in PubMed
    3. Combes AJ, Samad B, Tsui J, Chew NW, Yan P, Reeder GC, Kushnoor D, Shen A, Davidson B, Barczak AJ, Adkisson M, Edwards A, Naser M, Barry KC, Courau T, Hammoudi T, Argüello RJ, Rao AA, Olshen AB, Immunoprofiler Consortium, Cai C, Zhan J, Davis KC, Kelley RK, Chapman JS, Atreya CE, Patel A, Daud AI, Ha P, Diaz AA, Kratz JR, Collisson EA, Fragiadakis GK, Erle DJ, Boissonnas A, Asthana S, Chan V, Krummel MF. Discovering dominant tumor immune archetypes in a pan-cancer census. Cell. 2022 01 06; 185(1):184-203.e19. View in PubMed
    4. Kratz JR, Li JZ, Tsui J, Lee JC, Ding VW, Rao AA, Mann MJ, Chan V, Combes AJ, Krummel MF, Jablons DM. Genetic and immunologic features of recurrent stage I lung adenocarcinoma. Sci Rep. 2021 12 08; 11(1):23690. View in PubMed
    5. Jack Z. Li, Vivianne W. Ding, David M. Jablons, Johannes R. Kratz. Multiomic Characterization of Stage I Lung Adenocarcinoma Reveals Distinct Genetic and Immunologic Features of Recurrent Disease. Journal of the American College of Surgeons. 2021 Nov 1; 233(5):e190-e191. View in PubMed
    6. View All Publications

    Videos

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      In the News

      • Johannes Kratz, MD has been selected as UCSF’s first Medical Director of Robotic Surgery

        UCSF Department of Surgery - April 10, 2023
        We are pleased to announce that Johannes Kratz, MD has been selected as UCSF's first Medical Director of Robotic Surgery. Johannes has served as co-Director of the UCSF Health Robotic Executive committee from 2018-2022 and in 2022 became sole director of the same. Under his careful stewardship, robotic surgeries have grown year over year adding additional service lines and placing UCSF at the forefront of technological innovation in the use of robotic technology in surgery. Johannes has led the [...]

      • Johannes Kratz, MD Recipient of the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Care Center Junior Clinical Investigator Award

        UCSF Thoracic Oncology Program - Richard Barg - August 01, 2020
        UCSF surgeon-scientist Johannes R. Kratz, M.D. was awarded a Junior Clinical Investigator Award from the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Care Center. This mentored award is given to a junior clinical investigator to support their research efforts in the early stages of their career. Dr. Kratz was given this prestigious award to pursue the study of the tumor immune microenvironment in high-risk early-stage lung cancer.   The Kratz lab focuses on the genetic and immunological mechanisms that [...]

      • Developing Perioperative Covid-19 Testing Protocols to Restore Surgical Services

        UCSF Department of Surgery - NEJM Catayst - June 26, 2020
        Since the first community-transmission of Covid-19 was identified in the United States on February 26, 2020,1 the medical community has experienced an upheaval like never before. Looking to the experiences abroad, urgent steps were taken to reduce surgical cases and preserve inpatient capacity for a potential surge of Covid-19 patients.2 Many patients in need of nonurgent but essential surgical care were delayed those services. At the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), we [...]

      • Researchers Propose Adding a Molecular Classifier to TNM Staging in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

        Cancer Therapy Adviser - Sarah Elizabeth Richards - January 16, 2020
        "Looking at the genomic aspect of tumors allows us to get deeper than just looking at the microscopic appearance of the tumor and see how aggressive they are biologically," said Johannes Kratz, MD, FACS, director of minimally invasive and robotic thoracic surgery at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and coauthor of the study that was published in December 2019 in JAMA Network Open. "We can make a more accurate prediction of which patients will recur and better predict [...]

      • Johannes Kratz, MD Recipient of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery Michael DeBakey Research Scholarship

        UCSF Thoracic Oncology Program - Richard Barg - December 11, 2019
        UCSF surgeon-scientist Johannes R. Kratz, M.D. has been awarded the Michael DeBakey Research Scholarship by the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) and AATS Foundation. This two-year research scholarship is awarded annually to a single North American surgeon committed to pursuing an academic career in cardiothoracic surgery. Dr. Kratz was given this prestigious award for the study of genetic and immunologic determinants of recurrent early-stage lung cancer. The Kratz Lab focuses [...]

      • Incorporation of a Molecular Prognostic Classifier Improves Conventional Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Staging

        UCSF Thoracic Oncology Program and Kratz Lab - Richard Barg - May 20, 2019
        Despite adoption of molecular biomarkers in the management of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the recently adopted 8th Edition staging utilized only clinicopathologic characteristics, and validated improvement in risk stratification of early-stage disease remains elusive. We therefore evaluated the integration of a clinically-validated molecular prognostic classifier into conventional staging.... Incorporation of a molecular prognostic classifier significantly improved identification of [...]

      • Johannes Kratz, MD Recipient of the Inaugural ImmunoX Hellman Family Clinical-Translational Research Development Award

        UCSF Thoracic Oncology Program - Richard Barg - May 06, 2019
        UCSF surgeon-scientist Johannes R. Kratz, M.D. was awarded the Inaugural Hellman Family Clinical-Translational Research Development Award from the Bakar ImmunoX initiative. This development award embeds a young investigator in an ImmunoX CoLab for two years in order to rapidly translate clinical insights into molecular-level understanding of disease. Dr. Kratz was given this prestigious award for the study of tumor immune populations in high-risk early-stage lung cancer.   The Kratz [...]

      • Thoracic Oncology Program Launches Kratz Lab Focused on Therapeutic Interventions for Early-Stage Lung Cancers

        UCSF Thoracic Oncology Program - Richard Barg - March 26, 2018
        The Thoracic Oncology Program proudly announces the launch of the Kratz Lab, which will focus on understanding the genetic and immunological mechanisms that drive early-stage, surgically resectable thoracic malignancies, most notably non-small cell lung cancer. The translationally-focused Kratz Lab will use the knowledge gained from investigating these mechanisms to identify novel therapeutic targets and treatments for this group of patients.  Johannes R. Kratz, M.D., assistant professor in [...]

      • Johannes Kratz Named Van Auken Endowed Chair in Thoracic Oncology

        UCSF Department of Surgery - Richard Barg - February 24, 2018
        Johannes R. Kratz, M.D. has been named the new Van Auken Endowed Chair in Thoracic Oncology. Kratz is an assistant professor in the Division of Adult Cardiothoracic Surgery, a member of the Thoracic Oncology Program, and director of Advanced Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery.  The Van Auken Endowed Chair supports research, teaching and service in the field of thoracic oncology. Kratz has excelled in all three areas. As a research fellow at UCSF, he was instrumental in the development of a [...]

      • Johannes Kratz and Yeranuí Ledesma Recipients of UCSF Health Exceptional Physician Awards

        UCSF Department of Surgery - Richard Barg - July 27, 2017
        Johannes R. Kratz, M.D. and Yeranuí Ledesma, M.D. are among this year's recipients of the 2017 UCSF Health Exceptional Physician Award. Dr. Kratz, now a member of the Thoracic Oncology Program and Assistant Professor in the Division of Adult Cardiothoracic Surgery, and Dr. Ledesma, a Senior Resident in General Surgery, were among 8 winners out of 61 nominees, notably the only clinical fellow and resident, respectively, at UCSF to receive the award, and the only recipients not on the faculty. [...]

      • Johannes Kratz Joins Department Faculty and Thoracic Oncology Program

        UCSF Department of Surgery - Richard Barg - July 01, 2017
        The Department of Surgery welcomes Johannes R. Kratz, M.D. to the faculty as Assistant Professor in the Division of Adult Cardiothoracic Surgery and member of the Thoracic Oncology Program. Dr. Kratz was a surgical research fellow in the UCSF Thoracic Oncology Laboratory from 2008-2011 where he played a key role in the research leading to the development of a prognostic assay for early-stage lung cancer by a team led by David M. Jablons, M.D. and Michael Mann, M.D., a test now in widespread [...]

      • Molecular Test Identifies Early-Stage Lung Cancer Patients at High Risk of Death After Surgery

        UCSF Thoracic Oncology Program - November 01, 2012
        Jablons Etal Horiz
        Building on their  earlier work reported in The Lancet, two UCSF thoracic surgeons   David M. Jablons, M.D. (left) and   Michael Mann, M.D. (middle), and  Johannes Kratz, M.D. (right) a former surgical resident in the  Thoracic Oncology Lab, showed they could accurately stratify patients even with the earliest stage of lung cancer into groups at low-, intermediate- or high-risk of death based solely on the activity of 14 different genes found in their tumors. The group analyzed lung  tumors of [...]

      • Mulitgene Assay Better Predictor of Survival than Conventional Staging

        UCSF Thoracic Oncology Program - January 26, 2012
        Jablons Etal Horiz
        In the two largest clinical studies ever conducted on the molecular genetics of lung cancer, an international team, led by UCSF thoracic surgeons David M. Jablons, M.D. and Michael Mann, M.D., demonstrated that a 14-gene prognostic molecular assay better predicted the likelihood of death in early-stage lung cancer  patients versus conventional staging guidelines. Johannes Kratz, M.D., a former surgical resident in the  Thoracic Oncology Laboratory, helped spearhead the  development of the [...]

       

       
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