Ignacio Melero

Ignacio Melero is a full Professor of Immunology at the Universidad de Navarra, Spain. In 2015 he was appointed co-chair of the Department of clinical Immunology and Immunotherapy at the Clinica Universidad de Navarra. Dr Melero earned his medical degree from the Universidad de Navarra and completed his residency training in Clinical Immunology and his PhD at the Hospital Universitario de la Princesa, Madrid. In 2023, he was appointed Kidani Professorship of Cancer Immuno-Therapeutics at the University of Oxford. In 1994, Dr Melero joined Bristol-Myers Squibb, Seattle, USA, as a researcher in cancer immunotherapy, where he contributed pioneering work in the field of co-stimulation of antitumor immune responses and the use of immunostimulatory monoclonal antibodies such as those acting on 4-1BB (CD137). Back to Spain in 1998 he started research on cancer immunotherapy focusing on combined synergistic strategies.

For his works Dr Melero has been awarded the BIAL Medicine Grand Award and the Francisco Cobos prize among other honors.

Dr Melero’s research interests focus on translational research in cancer immunotherapy with cell, gene and monoclonal antibody-based strategies. Dr Melero has served as Principal Investigator in numerous cancer immunotherapy clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical industry and other institutions. He has authored over 350 peer-reviewed publications and currently serves as Senior Editor for Clinical Cancer Research, Scientific Editor for Cancer Discovery, and Section Editor for the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

Member of the scientific advisory boards of institute Curie (Paris), institute the investigación biomédica de Granada, Netherlands cancer Institute (NKI) and member of the scientific council of Institute Gustave Roussy. Dr. Ignacio Melero has just been awarded an ERC-Advanced Grant from the European Union for his investigations on mRNA-based immunotherapies.

The phrase that best defines Dr. Melero´s scientific biography is Translational Research in Cancer Immunotherapy in collaboration with pharmaceutical industry and with european groups, receiving funding in consortia for the development of immunotherapeutic strategies.