Dr. Rubin is a Professor of Pediatrics and Neuroscience at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He is originally from Ardsley, New York and is a graduate of Yale University. Dr. Rubin went on to receive his MD and PhD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Following graduation, he completed a residency in Pediatrics at Boston’s Children’s Hospital and a fellowship in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School where he trained in pediatric neuro-oncology with Dr. Mark Kieran. At the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Dr. Rubin completed his post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Rosalind Segal.

In Dr. Segal’s laboratory, Dr. Rubin became the first person to engineer brain tumor cells to express firefly luciferase and to then use the light emitted to measure intracranial growth of medulloblastoma and glioblastoma. A breakthrough, it allowed for new study of the alpha-chemokine receptor CXCR4, found overexpressed in more than 23 cancers, contributing to tumor growth, relapse and therapeutic resistance. His technique allowed him to investigate the efficacy of CXCR4 antagonism, an approach shown to reduce tumor growth and sensitize cancer cells to treatments, among other important benefits.

In 2003, Dr. Rubin was recruited to Washington University where he established his research lab and co-founded the Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Program at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. In the clinic, his research activities include many therapeutic clinical trials and a significant focus on understanding the basis for cognitive deficits after treatment for pediatric brain tumors. The focus in his laboratory is on links between normal brain development and the genesis of brain tumors, especially those aspects of development that render males more vulnerable to brain tumors than females, and the development of novel therapeutics.

Investigator of Clinical Trial:  MV-NIS (NCT 02962167)