John B. Robbins, M.D. (1932 –2019)
John B. Robbins was born in 1932 in Brooklyn, New York. He was born into a Jewish family (whose last name was originally Rabinowitz but was later changed) who had immigrated from Minsk, an eastern European city that is today he capital of Belarus. John’s parents founded a box and paper company and were upwardly mobile, emphasizing education for their children. Robbins received his bachelor’s degree in history in 1956 and a medical degree in 1959, both from New York University. Early in his career he was a pediatrician at the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he trained in infectious disease and immunology. There he saw meningitis patients who inspired him to shift his career to research that would protect children from meningitis and other diseases. In the late 1960s he worked at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York.
He first came to the NIH in 1970 as the first Clinical Director at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). In 1974 he joined the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Bureau of Biologics (what the Division of Biologics Standards was called when it was first administratively transferred to the FDA). Dr. Robbins was the director of the Division of Bacterial Products until 1984, when he retuned to NICHD, establishing the Laboratory of Developmental and Molecular Immunity to explore methods for developing vaccines against Hib and other encapsulated bacteria. In subsequent years, Drs. Robbins, Schneerson, and their colleagues developed a vaccine for pertussis and worked on conjugate vaccines against typhoid fever, Staphylococcus aureus, and other bacterial diseases. Dr. Robbins retired from NICHD in 2012.
Dr. Robbins was the recipient of numerous awards during his long career (he was still actively working in his 70s), including the prestigious Lasker Award Winner in 1996 for the vaccine for preventing meningitis in children. Together with his colleague, Dr. Rachel Schneerson, they developed the polysaccharide-protein conjugate vaccine for Hemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), which can cause meningitis in children. The Lasker Award is bestowed annually to those who have made major contributions to medical science.
Dr. Robbins was also the Sabin Gold Medal winner in 2001 for his pivotal role in the development of Hib conjugate vaccine, which is now used throughout the world. The use of this vaccine led to a dramatic decline in the number of infants and children suffering from meningitis and other systematic infections such as osteomyelitis and pneumonia. He received the World Health Organization Children’s Vaccine Initiative Pasteur Award (with Dr. Rachel Schneerson) in 2006, and Thailand’s Prince Mahidol Foundation Award for Public Health in 2017 (with Drs. Anderson and Schneerson).
Dr. Robbins worked in Building 29, Rooms 120 and 122.
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