Biography

Antoni Ribas, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Medicine, Professor of Surgery, and Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Director of the Tumor Immunology Program at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC), Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) Center at UCLA. Dr Ribas is a physician-scientist who conducts laboratory and clinical research in malignant melanoma, focusing on gene engineered T cells, PD-1 blockade and BRAF targeted therapies.

His National Cancer Institute (NCI), State of California and foundation-supported research laboratory develops models of disease to test new therapeutic options, studies mechanism of action of treatments in patients and the molecular mechanisms of therapy resistance. He has been instrumental in the clinical development of several agents approved by the FDA, including pembrolizumab (Keytruda), vemurafenib (Zelboraf), cobimetinib (Cotellic), dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and trametinib (Mekinist).

Dr. Ribas currently serves as President of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine of the US (NAM), of the Fellows of the AACR Academy (FAACR) and the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), has a Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Buenos Aires, co-led the Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C)-Cancer Research Institute (CRI)-AACR Immunotherapy Dream Team with the Nobel Laureate James Allison, is the recipient of a NCI Outstanding Investigator Award, was profiled as one of the five Visionaries in Medicine by the New York Times on May 27, 2018, was acknowledged as Great Immigrant by the Carnegie Foundation in the New York Times on July 4, 2018, and is the recipient of the 2014 AACR Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award, the 2018 AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology, the 2019 William B. Coley Award in Basic and Tumor Immunology from the Cancer Research Institute (CRI), and the 2020 ESMO Award for Translational Research.