Joel Ernst, MD

Chief, Experimental Medicine
Professor
M_MED-ZSFG-EXPM
[email protected]

My lab focuses on immunity to tuberculosis, to inform the rational design and development of new TB vaccines.  Our work includes basic studies of mechanisms of immunity and immune evasion in TB, using mouse models. In addition, we study human immunity to TB, and discovered that in contrast to pathogens that employ antigenic variation to evade immunity and cause persistent infection, the human T cell antigens and epitopes of M. tuberculosis are highly conserved, even in strains that diverged from a common ancestor thousands of years ago.  More recently, we have identified rare antigens of M. tuberculosis that show evidence of diversifying selection, and have initiated studies to test the hypothesis that T cell responses to those antigens are associated with superior protective immunity compared with T cell responses to conserved antigens.  Our work on human immunity to TB spans multiple continents, and involves numerous collaborators at UCSF, and at other U.S. and international sites and institutions.

Ernst lab: https://experimentalmedicine.ucsf.edu/laboratories/ernst-lab 

UCSF Center for Tuberculosis Leadership:
UC TRAC Core Management Committee Member

Publications

Back-to-Africa introductions of Mycobacterium tuberculosis as the main cause of tuberculosis in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Zwyer M, Rutaihwa LK, Windels E, Hella J, Menardo F, Sasamalo M, Sommer G, Schm?lling L, Borrell S, Reinhard M, D?tsch A, Hiza H, Stritt C, Sikalengo G, Fenner L, De Jong BC, Kato-Maeda M, Jugheli L, Ernst JD, Niemann S, Jeljeli L, Ballif M, Egger M, Rakotosamimanana N, Yeboah-Manu D, Asare P, Malla B, Dou HY, Zetola N, Wilkinson RJ, Cox H, Carter EJ, Gnokoro J, Yotebieng M, Gotuzzo E, Abimiku A, Avihingsanon A, Xu ZM, Fellay J, Portevin D, Reither K, Stadler T, Gagneux S, Brites D

Evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 serology assays reveals a range of test performance.

Whitman JD, Hiatt J, Mowery CT, Shy BR, Yu R, Yamamoto TN, Rathore U, Goldgof GM, Whitty C, Woo JM, Gallman AE, Miller TE, Levine AG, Nguyen DN, Bapat SP, Balcerek J, Bylsma SA, Lyons AM, Li S, Wong AW, Gillis-Buck EM, Steinhart ZB, Lee Y, Apathy R, Lipke MJ, Smith JA, Zheng T, Boothby IC, Isaza E, Chan J, Acenas DD, Lee J, Macrae TA, Kyaw TS, Wu D, Ng DL, Gu W, York VA, Eskandarian HA, Callaway PC, Warrier L, Moreno ME, Levan J, Torres L, Farrington LA, Loudermilk RP, Koshal K, Zorn KC, Garcia-Beltran WF, Yang D, Astudillo MG, Bernstein BE, Gelfand JA, Ryan ET, Charles RC, Iafrate AJ, Lennerz JK, Miller S, Chiu CY, Stramer SL, Wilson MR, Manglik A, Ye CJ, Krogan NJ, Anderson MS, Cyster JG, Ernst JD, Wu AHB, Lynch KL, Bern C, Hsu PD, Marson A

Test performance evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 serological assays.

Whitman JD, Hiatt J, Mowery CT, Shy BR, Yu R, Yamamoto TN, Rathore U, Goldgof GM, Whitty C, Woo JM, Gallman AE, Miller TE, Levine AG, Nguyen DN, Bapat SP, Balcerek J, Bylsma SA, Lyons AM, Li S, Wong AW, Gillis-Buck EM, Steinhart ZB, Lee Y, Apathy R, Lipke MJ, Smith JA, Zheng T, Boothby IC, Isaza E, Chan J, Acenas DD, Lee J, Macrae TA, Kyaw TS, Wu D, Ng DL, Gu W, York VA, Eskandarian HA, Callaway PC, Warrier L, Moreno ME, Levan J, Torres L, Farrington LA, Loudermilk R, Koshal K, Zorn KC, Garcia-Beltran WF, Yang D, Astudillo MG, Bernstein BE, Gelfand JA, Ryan ET, Charles RC, Iafrate AJ, Lennerz JK, Miller S, Chiu CY, Stramer SL, Wilson MR, Manglik A, Ye CJ, Krogan NJ, Anderson MS, Cyster JG, Ernst JD, Wu AHB, Lynch KL, Bern C, Hsu PD, Marson A