Ira Mellman
About Ira Mellman
I was on the faculty of Yale University School of Medicine for over 20 years, holding the Sterling Professorship of Cell Biology and Immunobiology. I also served as chair of the Department of Cell Biology, Scientific Director of the Yale Cancer Center, and was an investigator with the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. In 2007, I moved to Genentech to apply the basic science insights learned during my academic career to cancer drug discovery. I now devote 100% of my effort to cancer immunology and immunotherapy, and have built perhaps the largest discovery unit devoted to this problem in industry or academia. With our first marketed product (Tecentriq®, atezolizumab), the larger Genentech/Roche organization has become a major player in this space, with much more still to come.