Jonathan P. Jacobs

Jonathan P Jacobs

Assistant Professor-in-Residence, Medicine, University of California Los Angeles

10833 Le Conte Ave
CHS A3-115
Los Angeles, CA 90095

UC Profile
http://uclahealth.org/gastro
https://www.uclahealth.org/gastro/jacobs-lab

Affiliations

Director, Microbiome Center
Member, Molecular, Cellular & Integrative Physiology GPB Home Area
 

Biography

Dr. Jacobs graduated magna cum laude with highest honors from Harvard University with an AB in biochemistry. He subsequently received his MD from Harvard Medical School, graduating magna cum laude in a special field. During college and medical school, he trained in the laboratory of Diane Mathis and Christophe Benoist where he investigated the immunologic mechanisms of an autoantibody-mediated model of arthritis. This research was supported by a fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and resulted in three first-author publications, including one in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Stanford University then joined UCLA as a gastroenterology fellow in 2010. He pursued additional research training at UCLA through the Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) program under the mentorship of Jonathan Braun. He was awarded a PhD in cellular and molecular pathology in 2015 and afterwards joined the UCLA Division of Digestive Diseases faculty. He co-founded the UCLA Microbiome Center in 2015 and now directs the Microbiome Core, which provides a comprehensive suite of microbiome-related services to support microbiome research by the UCLA scientific community.

Dr. Jacobs’ research explores the role of intestinal microbes in the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other gastrointestinal disorders. This involves a translational approach that includes detailed characterization of patients’ microbiome by 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing, metagenomics, and metabolomics as well as modeling of the effect of disease-associated human microbial communities in humanized gnotobiotic mice (i.e. germ-free mice colonized with human microbiota). His research has been published in a number of scientific journals including Gastroenterology, Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Gut Microbes, Scientific Reports, and Microbiome. He also authored a review article, commentary, and two textbook chapters on intestinal host-microbiome interactions. His work was awarded Best Overall Abstract at the CURE: Digestive Diseases Research Center Annual Research Meeting, the Fellow Abstract Prize from the American Gastroenterological Association, the Young Investigator Award at the Gut Microbiota for Health World Summit, and Best Basic Science Abstract at the Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Conference. His ongoing projects employ animal models and multi’omics analysis of patient cohorts to define the role of IBD-associated genes in shaping the intestinal microbiome and to identify microbes and microbial products that promote IBD, irritable bowel syndrome, obesity, and other diseases.

Publications