{"entity":{"id":"antoni-ribas","kind":"person","name":"Antoni Ribas","aka":[],"tldr":"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.","asOf":"2026-09-08","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Ribas_(professor)","links":[{"label":"UCLA profile","url":"https://www.uclahealth.org/providers?q=Antoni%20Ribas"},{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Ribas%20A%5BAuthor%5D"},{"label":"Google Scholar","url":"https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Antoni%20Ribas"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":["melanoma"],"sections":[],"technologies":["checkpoint-inhibitor","tcr-t"],"targets":["pd1","braf"],"drugs":["pembrolizumab"],"companies":[],"institutions":["ucla-jonsson","aacr"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"Professor of Medicine; Director, Tumor Immunology Program, UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center","institutionId":"ucla-jonsson","specialisms":["Melanoma","Immunotherapy","Resistance to checkpoint blockade"],"profiles":[{"label":"UCLA profile","url":"https://www.uclahealth.org/providers?q=Antoni%20Ribas"},{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Ribas%20A%5BAuthor%5D"},{"label":"Google Scholar","url":"https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Antoni%20Ribas"}],"papers":[{"title":"Mutations Associated with Acquired Resistance to PD-1 Blockade in Melanoma","journal":"New England Journal of Medicine","year":2016,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1604958","doi":"10.1056/NEJMoa1604958"},{"title":"Cancer immunotherapy using checkpoint blockade","journal":"Science","year":2018,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aar4060","doi":"10.1126/science.aar4060"},{"title":"Tumeh 2014: PD-1 blockade works by releasing T cells already present at the tumour edge","journal":"Nature","year":2014,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13954","doi":"10.1038/nature13954"}]},"route":"/people/antoni-ribas/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"advanced-melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Advanced melanoma (unresectable stage III and stage IV)","route":"/cancers/advanced-melanoma/"},{"id":"melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Melanoma","route":"/cancers/melanoma/"}],"technology":[{"id":"checkpoint-inhibitor","kind":"technology","name":"Immune checkpoint inhibitors","route":"/technologies/checkpoint-inhibitor/"},{"id":"tcr-t","kind":"technology","name":"TCR-T cell therapy","route":"/technologies/tcr-t/"}],"target":[{"id":"braf","kind":"target","name":"BRAF","route":"/targets/braf/"},{"id":"pd1","kind":"target","name":"PD-1","route":"/targets/pd1/"}],"drug":[{"id":"pembrolizumab","kind":"drug","name":"Pembrolizumab","route":"/drugs/pembrolizumab/"}],"institution":[{"id":"aacr","kind":"institution","name":"American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)","route":"/institutions/aacr/"},{"id":"ucla-jonsson","kind":"institution","name":"UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center","route":"/institutions/ucla-jonsson/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-ribas-wolchok-checkpoint-blockade-science-2018","kind":"paper","name":"Ribas and Wolchok 2018: cancer immunotherapy using checkpoint blockade","route":"/key-papers/paper-ribas-wolchok-checkpoint-blockade-science-2018/"},{"id":"paper-tumeh-pd1-adaptive-immune-resistance-nature-2014","kind":"paper","name":"Tumeh 2014: PD-1 blockade works by releasing T cells already present at the tumour edge","route":"/key-papers/paper-tumeh-pd1-adaptive-immune-resistance-nature-2014/"}]}}