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Ronald J. Ellis, MD, PhD
Professor In ResidenceEmail: roellis@ucsd.edu
Dr. Ellis maintains a strong clinical research focus in the area of HIV-related neurologic disorders. He has built an active NeuroAIDS clinical research program with a broad portfolio of studies in HIV dementia and sensory neuropathy. An active laboratory investigator as well as clinician, he directs a laboratory examining viral load and cytokines and chemokines in HIV.
Dr. Ellis has authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications and more than 100 scientific abstracts. He serves on a standing committee of the NIH Center for Scientific Review, and as a consultant to the National Institute of Mental Health in Bangalore, India. He is an editorial reviewer for many prominent journals, including Neurology, Annals of Neurology, Neuroscience Letters, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, Journal of Infectious Diseases, and AIDS, and is an invited member of numerous scientific advisory boards and conference organizing committees both nationally and internationally.
In 2001, Dr. Ellis was invited to present the plenary address at the Eighth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. Other invited addresses include lectures in Duesseldorf, Germany, for the International Society for Neurovirology and Neuroscience of HIV Infection in 2002, titled “HIV Dynamics in Cerebrospinal Fluid,” and in Saint Martin, French West Indies, in 2003, for the First International Workshop on HIV Persistence during Therapy.
Dr. Ellis’s major line of investigation is HIV ribonucleic acid (RNA) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). His studies determine the correlates and significance of HIV RNA with respect to clinical neurocognitive disorders. Dr. Ellis is Principal Investigator of a federally funded research project that encompasses several interacting clinical and basic science investigations. These studies evaluate strategies for therapeutic intervention in patients with HIV neurological diseases through the study of CSF and assess the role of the CNS in the development of antiretroviral resistance.
The first of these studies is an open-label trial of individualized combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV neurocognitive disorder. Its principal objective is to correlate improvements in neurocognitive function with CSF virologic (HIV RNA) suppression and CSF chemokine changes during ART. The second is a controlled comparison of virologic responses in CSF and plasma with ART in individuals without neurocognitive disorders. Its main goal is to compare rates of change in CSF and plasma HIV RNA levels (HIV dynamics) and chemokines during ART, and to evaluate determinants of virologic efficacy and failure in the CSF. Dr. Ellis showed that HIV RNA in the CSF originates from both CNS and systemic sources. This work has implications for better understanding CNS complications of AIDS, and for designing and measuring outcomes of treatment.
Additionally, Dr. Ellis is Co-Director of the CNS HIV Antiretroviral Therapy Effects Research (CHARTER) program, a federally funded, multicenter study designed to evaluate the impact of highly active antiretroviral therapies on neurologic disease due to HIV. He also directs the Protocol Monitoring Unit of the California Neuro-AIDS Tissue Network, a multicenter, longitudinal clinical-neuropathological correlation study.
With funding from the California State Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research, Dr. Ellis is conducting the study Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind Trial of Medicinal Cannabis in Painful HIV Neuropathy. He also has garnered industry support for clinical trials of prosaptide (Savient Pharmaceuticals), a neuro-regenerative agent, and high-dose capsaicin (NeurogesX, Inc.), a novel topical analgesic therapy for neuropathy in HIV infection.
Dr. Ellis is an active member of multicenter NeuroAIDS organizations such as the Neurologic AIDS Research Consortium and the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG). He serves as Protocol Chair for the study Clinical Validation of the ACTG NeuroScreen: A Multicenter Study of the Neurologic AIDS Research Consortium, and as Protocol Vice Chair for the ACTG Longitudinal Study of Brain Injury in HIV Infection by in Vivo Proton MR Spectroscopy.
Dr. Ellis maintains a full complement of teaching activities, including scheduled and individual instruction, and graduate-level courses. He teaches in a variety of settings, including inpatient hospital rounds and outpatient clinics at the UCSD and VA San Diego Medical Centers. He received the Junior Faculty Teaching Award for excellence in resident education for four consecutive years (1998-2001).
Dr. Ellis supervises specialty clinics, including a weekly clinic in which he evaluates both NeuroAIDS and general neurology referrals. He is Chief of Service for the UCSD Outpatient Neurology Clinic at the UCSD Medical Center in Hillcrest.