Brian I. Rini

Brian I. Rini, MD is Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Section of Hematology/Oncology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is a world leader in kidney cancer clinical research, with particular expertise in the biology of angiogenesis in renal cell carcinoma and the development of combination immunotherapy-VEGFR regimens. He served as global principal investigator for KEYNOTE-426, the landmark phase III trial demonstrating that pembrolizumab combined with axitinib significantly improved overall survival, progression-free survival, and objective response rate compared to sunitinib across all IMDC risk groups in first-line metastatic clear cell RCC, leading to FDA approval and establishing IO+VEGFR combination as a dominant first-line paradigm. Prior to joining Vanderbilt, Dr. Rini spent more than 15 years at Cleveland Clinic, where he built one of the nation's premier renal cancer clinical trial programs. He has also investigated blood pressure as a pharmacodynamic biomarker of axitinib efficacy, VEGF genetic polymorphisms predicting toxicity, and HIF-2α biology as a target in VHL-mutated RCC. He is a past chair of the ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium and a contributor to NCCN Kidney Cancer guidelines.