Articles by Cody Barnett, MPH, MRA Senior Director of Communications & Patient Engagement
Mollie’s Fund Partners to Prevent Skin Cancers Among Firefighters
By Cody Barnett, MPH, MRA Senior Director of Communications & Patient Engagement | 8 September 2022 In Prevention
Every day firefighters put their own safety on the line to protect the lives and property of others. It’s a tough job that puts those who do it at increased risk for burns, smoke inhalation, and other injuries.
What Uveal Melanoma Patients Need to Know about KIMMTRAK
By Cody Barnett, MPH, MRA Senior Director of Communications & Patient Engagement | 18 July 2022 In Science, Treatment
You may have heard of KIMMTRAK, a new therapy that recently earned FDA approval for the treatment of metastatic or unresectable uveal melanoma. Uveal melanoma, also called ocular melanoma, is a rare melanoma subtype that affects about 2,500 people each year in the United States. KIMMTRAK is the first drug to earn FDA approval to treat these patients.
This Mother-Daughter Duo Are On a Mission to Save Your Skin
By Cody Barnett, MPH, MRA Senior Director of Communications & Patient Engagement | 27 June 2022 In Allies & Partnerships, Prevention
Dr. Beth and Elianna Goldstein aren’t your usual mother-daughter duo. That’s because they are just as comfortable heading to yoga together as they are reviewing quarterly sales projections for their startup, Modern Ritual. The company, launched in 2020, creates simple and effective skin care products and services to protect you...
Preventing Melanomas Before they Happen in Oregon Schools
By Cody Barnett, MPH, MRA Senior Director of Communications & Patient Engagement | 22 June 2022 In Prevention, Science
Dr. Haag and his team had an ambitious goal: they wanted the melanoma prevention and early detection curriculum taught in every high school throughout the state of Oregon. Their curriculum has now been taught to 10,653 students across 79 high schools throughout Oregon.
What Melanoma Patients Need to Know about Opdualag
By Cody Barnett, MPH, MRA Senior Director of Communications & Patient Engagement | 23 May 2022 In Science, Treatment
You may have heard of Opdualag, a new therapy that recently earned FDA approval for advanced melanoma. Opdualag, which combines two different immunotherapies into one medicine, is earning attention as an effective – and more easily tolerated – combination therapy.
MRA Announces $13 Million in Grants to Advance Melanoma Prevention, Detection & Treatment
By Cody Barnett, MPH, MRA Senior Director of Communications & Patient Engagement | 19 May 2022 In News, Prevention, Science, Treatment
Coinciding with Melanoma Awareness Month, the Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA), the largest non-profit funder of melanoma research, today announced funding for 27 research grants totaling $13,046,774 to support new research aimed at advancing melanoma prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
Dr. Gary Deng & The Wellness Principles
By Cody Barnett, MPH, MRA Senior Director of Communications & Patient Engagement | 9 May 2022 In Allies & Partnerships, Prevention, Treatment
Gary Deng, MD, PhD – an integrative medicine specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center – knows this firsthand. And now, for the first time, Dr. Deng is sharing his unique and highly respected wellness approach with everyone through his upcoming book, The Wellness Principles – Cooking for a Healthy Life.
Unlocking the Potential of Localized Treatments By Better Understanding Treatment Response
By Cody Barnett, MPH, MRA Senior Director of Communications & Patient Engagement | 23 March 2022 In News, Science, Treatment
It’s easy to think of melanoma – or any cancer – in black and white terms. You have it or you don’t, it responds or it’s resistant to treatment, or it grows or it shrinks. However, like most things, the reality is far more complex.
Testing AI in the Melanoma: From Promise to Action
By Cody Barnett, MPH, MRA Senior Director of Communications & Patient Engagement | 8 March 2022 In Prevention, Science
If you browse through your phone’s app store, you’ll find dozens of apps promising to help determine if a mole you’ve been staring at is cancerous or not based on the power of AI. While a great goal, none of these apps have earned approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, to do so, apps — and the algorithms that they rely on — will need to be rigorously tested in the real world and across diverse populations. This is exactly where Dr. Novoa’s research is aimed.
Melanoma Free & Living Scan-to-Scan
By Cody Barnett, MPH, MRA Senior Director of Communications & Patient Engagement | 4 March 2022 In Melanoma Stories
In 2007, while staining her deck at home, Debra Likes – who goes by Debbie – decided she’d had enough and would finally see her primary care doctor. She had been ignoring a mole on her left calf for more than a year as she watched it slowly transform from a round...
About the Author
Cody Barnett, MPH, MRA Senior Director of Communications & Patient Engagement
Cody Barnett, MPH serves as the Director of Communications & Patient Engagement at the Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA). In this role, he works to develop and cultivate strategies, messages, and stories that propel MRA and its mission forward. In addition, he develops patient-friendly articles, tools, and resources that demystify new research advances and make them actionable. Cody is responsible for media relations, web and social marketing, publications and materials development, and organizational branding. He is committed to using the power of storytelling and patient-centered thinking to advance melanoma research and improve patient outcomes.
Before joining the Melanoma Research Alliance, Cody served as Director of Communications at AIDS United, where he directed all internal, public, member, and online communications for the national HIV-focused organization. Previous to this, he managed digital communications for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s signature initiative, Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q).
Cody earned his Master of Public Health (MPH), concentrating in health policy, from The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health in 2013 and a Bachelor of Arts in political science from York College of Pennsylvania.