Krista Rubin, Chair of the Melanoma Nursing Initiative (MNI), is a nurse practitioner in the Center for Melanoma at Massachusetts General Hospital. For the past 20 years she has focused almost exclusively on melanoma, from prevention to management of metastatic disease. In her clinical practice, Ms Rubin has provided care to patients receiving immunotherapy, targeted therapy, and various investigational agents. Ms Rubin has served as a sub-investigator for more than 100 clinical research protocols, including many of the pivotal trials led to the FDA approval of such agents as interleukin-2, interferon alfa-2b, ipilimumab, pembrolizumab, nivolumab, trametinib, dabrafenib, and vemurafenib. She continues to work with these agents in her current clinical setting. She is considered an expert in the areas of melanoma education and prevention, cancer immunotherapy, targeted therapy, and symptom management. Ms Rubin has authored or co-authored numerous articles in peer reviewed journals on various topics related to melanoma. She has consulted, served on numerous planning committees, and continues to be a sought-after speaker at local, regional, national, and international conferences. She sits on the Medical Advisory Board for IMPACT Melanoma (formerly Melanoma Foundation of New England) and the Melanoma Research Foundation’s Pediatric Melanoma Committee. She served for a decade on the Board of Directors for the Children’s Melanoma Prevention Foundation. She is the Nurse Liaison to the Melanoma Committee for the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG), of which she has been a member since 2002. She is a member of the Society of Immunotherapy in Cancer (SITC), the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS), the Dermatology Nurses’ Association (DNA), and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Ms Rubin was the recipient of the 2010 award for Excellence in Cancer Prevention and Early Detection, from the Oncology Nursing Society, and was the recipient of the 2014 award for Outstanding Community Service from the Dermatology Nurses’ Association.
