In early March of 2018, at age 58, Roger Miller went to a local doctor’s office in Maine for outpatient surgery. He’d been putting off getting what he’d thought was a cyst removed from the back of his head. Miller, who at the time was working as a maritime consultant, wasn’t all that worried. He and his wife, Lisa, had just returned from backcountry skiing in British Columbia. He felt fine. The pathology report that came a few days later suggested otherwise. Miller had stage IV melanoma. A call to a family friend pointed them to Dana-Farber. After a series of evaluations in late March, Miller’s oncologist, Elizabeth Buchbinder, MD, delivered round two of unfathomable news: The melanoma had spread to his pelvis, lungs, and brain.

Today, he is cancer-free. He’s not taking any medication and he goes in for scans twice a year. “There’s no evidence of the cancer. There are no side effects. There’s no anything,” he says. “It worked.”

Elizabeth Buchbinder is a clinical oncologist at Dana Farber Cancer Institute specializing in the treatment of melanoma. In addition to treating patients she performs clinical and translational research to help further melanoma treatment. Her primary areas of research are in immunotherapy and novel targeted therapy approaches. She has particular interest in rare forms of melanoma including mucosal melanoma and uveal melanoma.