Francesco Marincola is Chief Scientific Officer of Sonata Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts (2023 to present). Previously, he was Global Head of Research at Kite Pharma, Santa Monica, California (2021-2023), President and Chief Scientific Officer at Refuge Biotechnologies, Palo Alto, California (2018-2021), Distinguished Research Fellow in Immune Oncology at AbbVie Corp. in Redwood City, California (2017-2018) and Chief Research Officer at Sidra Medical and Research Centre in Doha, Qatar (2013-2017). Prior to joining the biopharma industry, Francesco was a tenured senior investigator in cancer immunotherapy at the National Institutes of Health (1990-2013). Francesco is the former President of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC). He is the founding editor and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Translational Medicine and Translational Medicine Communications and the author of more than 700 peer-reviewed publications. His scientific work has deepened the understanding of the mechanisms leading to tumor rejection, transplant rejection, graft-versus-host disease and autoimmunity. Francesco received his M.

D. from the University of Milan, Italy, and completed his residency at Stanford University, California, USA.He published his first novel in 2013: "The Wise Men of Pizzo" which was awarded the "Corrado Alvaro Award for Literature" in 2016. The novel written originally in English has been translated into Italian and Mandarin. He also published two collections of short stories: "The Leopard and Other Stories" and "Cat Behind the Window".