Antoni Ribas

Dr Ribas is an internationally recognized physician-scientist who conducts translational and clinical research aimed at understanding how the immune system can be used to treat cancer. He has been a leader in the research and clinical development of multiple types of therapeutic agents, including immune checkpoint inhibitors, gene-engineered T cells, and BRAF-targeted therapies. His efforts have been instrumental in transforming the treatment paradigm for oncology patients, particularly those with malignant melanoma, having served as principal investigator for multiple trials, including those involving the breakthrough cancer therapy, Keytruda®.

Dr Ribas is Professor of Medicine, Surgery, and Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Director of the Tumor Immunology Program at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy Center at UCLA. He is currently the President-Elect for the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). Dr Ribas has founded or advised several successful biopharma companies in addition to Arcus, such as Kite Pharma and Flexus Biosciences. Most recently, he co-founded PACT Pharma, a company developing personalized cancer neoantigen-targeted T cell therapies, together with Professors David Baltimore and Jim Heath and Arcus co-founders, Terry Rosen and Juan Jaen. Dr Ribas has been a member of the Arcus Scientific Advisory Board since its creation in 2015.

Dr Ribas received MD and PhD degrees from the Universidad de Barcelona (Spain). He completed his internship and residency in medical oncology at the University Hospital Vall d’Hebron (Barcelona, Spain) and conducted postdoctoral research at UCLA. Following a fellowship in hematology/oncology in the Department of Medicine at UCLA, he has held numerous faculty and administrative positions at UCLA since 2001. Dr Ribas has received a myriad of awards and honors, including the AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology, the AACR Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Outstanding Investigator Award. Dr Ribas has also served on the Board of Directors of leading scientific organizations such as the AACR and the Society for Immunotherapy for Cancer (SITC).