Detalle Profesor

Nuestros investigadores

Ignacio Melero Bermejo

Centro(s)
Programa Inmunología e Inmunoterapia
Inmunología e Inmunoterapia Fundación para la Investigación Médica Aplicada
Director
Departamento de Inmunología e Inmunoterapia Clínica Universidad de Navarra
Líneas de investigación
Translational Research in Cancer Immunotherapy

Dr. Melero started out in biomedical research as a resident of immunology at the prestigious department of this specialty in Hospital Universitario de la Princesa (Madrid). He completed his doctoral thesis with Professor Miguel López-Botet identifying and functionally studying natural killer cell receptors. His work obtained the Outstanding Doctorate Award. In 1994 he joined Bristol Myers Squibb Company as a researcher in cancer immunotherapy (Seattle, WA). The result of his three years of work in this environment are pioneering publications in the knowledge of costimulation of antitumor immune responses and the use of immunostimulatory monoclonal antibodies (Nat. Med., 1997). During this period, he worked with Professor Lieping Chen in the division led by Professor Karl E. Hellström. His contributions during this period pioneered CD137-based cancer immunotherapy. In 1998 he returned to Spain in the campus of CIMA and Clínica Universidad de Navarra. In these centers he has led a multidisciplinary team working in cancer immunotherapy with cell therapy techniques, gene therapy and monoclonal antibodies. His impact in cancer immunotherapy includes practice-changing research in hepatocellular carcinoma. Dr. Melero serves as full professor of Immunology at the University of Navarra, has directed 17 PhD thesis (8 of them obtained the Outstanding Doctorate Award and one of them the Enrique Fuentes Quintana Award), and has been principal researcher in over 44 clinical trials of immunotherapy. His current research efforts include pioneering and influential published studies on crosspriming/crosspresentation of tumor antigens, intratumoral application of cancer immunotherapies, studies on the roles of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), neutralization of protumor cytokines and combinatorial immunotherapy strategies. His work has resulted in three patents transferred to industry. From a bibliometric point of view, Dr. Melero has an h-index of 85 and 325 articles indexed in Medline. For his career he has been awarded the BIAL Medicine award (2004), Conde de Cartagena Award of the Royal Academy of Medicine (2006) and Dr. Durantez award of the LAIR Foundation (2011 and 2019), Francisco Cobos prize (2020), Ciencias de la Salud Fundación Caja Rural Granada award (2020), Highly Cited Researcher, Clarivate (2020, 2021 and 2022) among other honors. In 2015 he was appointed director of the Immunology and Immunotherapy department of the Clínica Universidad de Navarra and in 2018 he was appointed Corresponding academician at the Royal National Academy of Medicine. 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 therapeutic strategies.