# Antoni Ribas

Source: https://onco.cc/people/antoni-ribas/  
OnCo record `antoni-ribas` (Person). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Melanoma immunotherapy leader behind pembrolizumab's first trials and the science of why immunotherapy fails.

## Summary

Antoni Ribas is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Tumor Immunology Program at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, and a past president of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). A medical oncologist specialising in melanoma, he led the earliest pembrolizumab studies in melanoma, including KEYNOTE-001, and defined mechanisms of resistance to checkpoint blockade such as JAK1/2 and B2M loss. His papers include a New England Journal of Medicine report on mutations associated with acquired resistance to PD-1 blockade in melanoma and a Science review of cancer immunotherapy using checkpoint blockade. He is a founder of cell-therapy and TCR companies and works on PD-1, BRAF and TCR-T cell therapy.

## Fields

- Kind: Person
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Role: Professor of Medicine; Director, Tumor Immunology Program, UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center
- Specialisms: Melanoma; Immunotherapy; Resistance to checkpoint blockade

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Ribas_(professor)
- UCLA profile: https://www.uclahealth.org/providers?q=Antoni%20Ribas
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Ribas%20A%5BAuthor%5D
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Antoni%20Ribas

## Connected records

- cancers: [Advanced melanoma (unresectable stage III and stage IV)](https://onco.cc/cancers/advanced-melanoma/), [Melanoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/melanoma/)
- technologies: [Immune checkpoint inhibitors](https://onco.cc/technologies/checkpoint-inhibitor/), [TCR-T cell therapy](https://onco.cc/technologies/tcr-t/)
- targets: [BRAF](https://onco.cc/targets/braf/), [PD-1](https://onco.cc/targets/pd1/)
- drugs: [Pembrolizumab](https://onco.cc/drugs/pembrolizumab/)
- institutions: [American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)](https://onco.cc/institutions/aacr/), [UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center](https://onco.cc/institutions/ucla-jonsson/)
- key papers: [Ribas and Wolchok 2018: cancer immunotherapy using checkpoint blockade](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-ribas-wolchok-checkpoint-blockade-science-2018/), [Tumeh 2014: PD-1 blockade works by releasing T cells already present at the tumour edge](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-tumeh-pd1-adaptive-immune-resistance-nature-2014/)

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