Ira Mellman (FAACR, FAIO) is President of Research at the Parker Institute of Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) and CSO of Medici Therapeutics, both in San Francisco. A pioneer in the field of cancer immunology concentrating on cancer vaccines, cell therapy, and the mechanisms of T cell checkpoints, Ira is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), a Fellow of the Academy of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and a Fellow of the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer. Ira served as VP of Cancer Immunology at Genentech, Sterling Professor of Cell Biology & Immunobiology at Yale Medical School where he was also Chair of the Department of Cell Biology, Scientific Director of the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Founding Director of the BBS Graduate Program. He received an AB degree from Oberlin College & Conservatory, a PhD from Yale in Genetics, and trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Ralph Steinman at The Rockefeller University. Ira is best known both for fundamental advances in cell biology (particularly the discovery of endosomes) and for applying these insights to elucidate the mechanisms of antigen processing by dendritic cells and the basis of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibition; Ira was also responsible for devising the Cancer Immunity Cycle framework. At Genentech, his team discovered four FDA-approved cancer agents, including the anti-PD-L1 antibody atezolizumab (Tecentriq®) and the CD20-CD3 bispecific antibody mosunetuzumab (Lunsumio®). Ira is the recipient of the 2025 Richard Smalley award of the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer, the Lloyd J. Old Award for Cancer Immunotherapy and Yale's Wilbur Cross Medal. Ira also served as the Newton-Abraham Professor at Oxford University and retains an appointment at the University of California, San Francisco. Ira left Genentech at the end of 2024 to advance efforts in cancer immunotherapy in a fashion unconstrained by the shifting priorities in large pharma. To this end, Ira has co-founded Medici Therapeutics, a new venture that will develop approaches to scaling personalized cell and vaccine therapies in cancer. As President of PICI, founded by Sean Parker, Ira is crafting an updated scientific strategy to ensure the Institute's continued success at rapidly moving fundamental discoveries in cancer immunology to patients and to the marketplace.