The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will present the 2026 AACR-Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research to Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, Fellow of the AACR Academy, during the AACR Annual Meeting 2026, to be held April 17 to 22 in San Diego.
Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD
Dr. Ribas is Professor of Medicine, Surgery, and Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as 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 being recognized for his exceptional leadership and extraordinary achievements in cancer research, including pioneering contributions to melanoma biology and cancer immunotherapy that have been instrumental in the clinical development of pembrolizumab and other transformative therapies. His seminal research has accelerated progress in cancer treatment by defining mechanisms of immunotherapy response and resistance, which has guided the design of innovative combination therapy approaches. Through his sustained leadership in clinical and translational research and service to the cancer research community, Dr. Ribas has played a pivotal role in advancing modern cancer medicine and has made a profound impact on patients and the broader cancer research field.
The AACR-Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research was established in 2007 in honor of Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), Chief Executive Officer of the AACR, for her exemplary leadership of the AACR and her sustained, extraordinary dedication to the conquest of cancer through research, scholarly publications, communication, collaborations, education and training, fundraising for cancer research, and science policy. This award is presented annually to an individual whose leadership and extraordinary achievements in cancer research have made a major impact in the field.
Research Achievements
Dr. Ribas, an internationally recognized leader in clinical trials, was instrumental in the development of pembrolizumab, the first single-agent anti–PD-1 immunotherapy for the treatment of melanoma and several other cancer types. Dr. Ribas was the principal investigator of the KEYNOTE-001 trial, which evaluated the safety and efficacy of pembrolizumab and is considered the largest phase I trial ever conducted in oncology, with over 600 melanoma patients participating at 12 institutions across the United States, Europe, and Australia. As a result of this trial, pembrolizumab received Breakthrough Therapy designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2013 and FDA approval in 2014, ushering in a paradigm shift in the treatment of melanoma.
In addition to his work on PD-1, Dr. Ribas has contributed to the understanding of how proteins such as BRAF, CTLA-4, and MEK may be targeted for cancer treatment. He conducted a phase Ib study to determine the efficacy and safety of drug therapy combinations involving the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib and the MEK1 inhibitor cobimetinib in BRAF V600–mutant melanoma, with nearly 40% of patients who had not received prior BRAF inhibition remaining alive at the 5-year mark. His research has helped decipher the molecular mechanisms responsible for resistance to immunotherapies, fueling additional efforts to understand the relationship between the immune system and cancer.
Recently, Dr. Ribas and his team have focused on molecular imaging and advanced monitoring of the immune system, using technologies such as positron emission tomography scans to precisely investigate how novel immunotherapies function at the molecular level.
“Dr. Ribas is a deeply committed physician-scientist whose work has seamlessly connected foundational scientific discovery with clinical innovation to make major breakthroughs in the treatment of a wide spectrum of cancers, saving countless lives,” said Dr. Foti. “His steady leadership as President of the AACR during the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with his service as Chair of numerous AACR committees, has been truly invaluable to our organization. We heartily congratulate Dr. Ribas on this richly deserved recognition.”
Awards and Positions
A member of the AACR since 1999, Ribas served as President of the AACR from 2020-2021. After assuming the AACR Presidency, Dr. Ribas launched and served as Chair of the AACR COVID-19 and Cancer Task Force (2020-2022) to help the organization navigate the pandemic. He also served on the AACR Board of Directors from 2016-2019 and was elected as a Fellow of the AACR Academy in 2020. He also has long provided editorial guidance to AACR journals, currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Immunology Research, and previously serving as a scientific editor of Cancer Discovery and a member of the editorial board for Clinical Cancer Research.
Dr. Ribas has been recognized with a myriad of honors and awards throughout his career, including the AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology in 2018 and the AACR-Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Memorial Award in 2016. He has also received the Tower Cancer Research Foundation Healing Award (2024), the Society for Melanoma Research Lifetime Achievement Award (2021), the European Society for Medical Oncology Award for Translational Research (2020), the Josep Trueta Medal and Plaque for Health Merit (2019), the CRI William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology (2019), the Hope Funds for Cancer Research Award of Excellence in Medicine (2019), the Agilent Thought Leader Award (2019), the OncLive Giants of Cancer Award (2015), the American Academy of Dermatology Lila and Murray Gruber Memorial Cancer Research Award and Lectureship (2015), the Society for Melanoma Outstanding Researcher Award (2015), the Melanoma International Foundation Doctor of the Year Award (2013), the Mary Kay Ash Foundation Award (2007), the Melanoma Research Foundation Junior Researcher Award (2005).
He has been elected to the Academy of Immuno-Oncology (2024), the Association of American Physicians (2023), the National Academy of Medicine (2020), the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia (2015), and the American Society for Clinical Investigation (2009). Dr. Ribas has also received a Doctor Honoris Causa from the Free University of Brussels (2021) and from the University of Buenos Aires (2017).
Dr. Ribas received his doctorate from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain, and his medical degree from the University of Barcelona. After serving as an intern and resident at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, he moved to UCLA, joining the faculty in 2001.
