Joanne Riemer, RN, BSN, began her nursing career at Johns Hopkins Hospital as an inpatient nurse on the solid tumor oncology unit. From there she moved into critical care in coronary care, intensive care, emergency, and recovery rooms. In 2002, she returned to oncology at Johns Hopkins in the outpatient infusion area, then radiation oncology, staff education, and in 2010 to her current position as senior research nurse on the Upper Aero-digestive Team. In January 2011, she was asked to work with the immunology group on a multidisease study using MDX-1106, which became BMS-936558 and then Nivolumab. She was assigned to the non-small cell lung cancer patients and since then has been almost exclusively working with immunotherapy trials.
In addition to her involvement with the immunotherapy trials, she and fellow colleagues created a booklet for oncology nurses treating patients with immuno-oncology agents. The booklet is an overview of these agents' indications and mechanisms of action and suspected related side effects.