Scientific Advisors

Victoria Richon, Ph.D. serves as R&D advisor to the board of directors and chair of Ribon’s scientific advisory board. Previously, Dr. Richon served as Ribon’s president and as a member of the board of directors since the company’s founding in November 2015 to February 2022, and served as chief executive officer from January 2017 to February 2022. Prior to becoming Ribon’s chief executive officer, Dr. Richon served as the company’s chief scientific officer from November 2015 to January 2017. Prior to joining Ribon, Dr. Richon served as vice president, global head of oncology research and translational medicine at Sanofi Oncology from November 2012 to October 2015. Dr. Richon served as the vice president of biological sciences at Epizyme, Inc. from October 2008 to November 2012. Dr. Richon served as the senior director and head of the Cancer Biology and Therapeutics Department at Merck & Co. from 2004 to 2008. Dr. Richon serves on the board of directors of Epizyme, Inc and HotSpot Therapeutics, Inc. Dr. Richon received a B.A. in chemistry from the University of Vermont and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

James Audia, Ph.D. has served as a member of our board of directors since April 2018. Dr. Audia is the chairman of our scientific advisory board. Dr. Audia is the president and sole proprietor of Audia Consulting, LLC, a scientific consulting firm which he founded in September 2019. Since November 2019, Dr. Audia has served as an entrepreneur in residence for Third Rock Ventures, a venture capital firm, and as the head of medicinal chemistry and senior advisor for Karuna Therapeutics, Inc. He is a founding scientist and executive vice president of drug discovery and early development for Flare Therapeutics. Dr. Audia has been an advisor to the Alzheimer’s Association since January 2020. Dr. Audia served as executive director of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium, or CBC, a collaborative effort of Northwestern University, The University of Chicago and The University of Illinois-Chicago, focused on enhancing biomedical innovation, from August 2017 to October 2019 and retains a visiting scholar appointment at Northwestern University. Prior to joining the CBC, Dr. Audia served as the chief scientific officer of Constellation Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from January 2011 to July 2017. Dr. Audia served in various roles at Eli Lilly & Company from 1987 until December 2010. Dr. Audia served on the board of directors of Constellation Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from July 2019 until July 2021 when the company was acquired by Morphosys, Inc. He received a B.S. and Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of South Carolina and completed postdoctoral training at Yale University.

Dr. Mitchison is a systems biologist and a pioneer in the study of cell division and a co-founder of Ribon. He is the Hasib Sabbagh Professor of Systems Biology and Deputy Chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School (HMS), which he helped found along with the Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology. Prior to HMS, he was a Professor at University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Mitchison pioneered the use of high-content phenotypic screening that led to identification of novel inhibitors of the mitotic kinesin Eg5/KSP, an anti-cancer target that has led to several Phase III studies. Mitchison is a former Searle scholar, a fellow of the Royal Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition to these honors, he is also a past president of the American Society for Cell Biology.

Dr. Mitchison earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics from the University of California, San Francisco where he also completed postdoctoral work with Dr. Marc Kirschner. He received a B.A. in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford in England.

Rickert is a Senior Vice President and Head of Cancer Immunology Discovery at Pfizer. Dr. Rickert was previously a Professor and Director of the Program on Tumor Microenvironment and Cancer Immunology, Associate Dean of Biomedical Sciences, and Director of Academic Affairs at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, California. In conjunction with the several leadership positions Dr. Rickert held at the institute, Dr. Rickert conducted research spanning a wide range of oncology interests, notably in B lymphocyte biology and B cell transformation to the malignant state. He has authored over 65 scientific papers and reviews, and is the recipient of various achievement awards including the American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award. Dr. Rickert earned his BA in Biological Sciences from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI, and a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Dr. Rosen is a Member of the Molecular Pharmacology Program and the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). Dr. Rosen’s major interests involve identification and study of the key molecular events and growth signaling pathways responsible for the development of human cancers, and the use of this information for the development of mechanism-based therapeutic strategies. Dr. Rosen has pioneered the concepts that feedback inhibition of physiologic signaling is an important consequence of oncogene activation that shapes the phenotype of cancer cells and that relief of this feedback in tumors treated with inhibitors of oncoprotein-activated signaling causes adaptive resistance to these drugs. Recent work from the Rosen laboratory includes the elucidation of the underlying mechanisms whereby mutated BRAF genes cause cancer and the discovery that these mutations may be divided into three different classes that determine the effective strategies for their treatment. These studies predicted several of the cellular mechanisms whereby tumors develop acquired resistance and adaptive resistance to standard therapy and the discovery and development of new drugs that will reverse this resistance. Recently, the Rosen laboratory has also focused on the development of the first direct inhibitor of RAS, a gene involved in the development of 25% of human cancers. This work, in addition to other recent studies by the Rosen laboratory on the consequences of relief of negative feedback by oncoprotein inhibitors, has led to multiple clinical trials of combination therapies at Memorial Sloan Kettering and other cancer centers in the United States and internationally that have shown promising early results. He is the incumbent of the Enid A. Haupt Chair in Medical Oncology at MSK and the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Melanoma Research.

Dr. Rosen received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Columbia College and an M.D. and Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and postdoctoral training and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute. He was on the senior staff of the Medicine Branch at the NCI prior to joining the faculty of MSK.