Alan S. Rabson (1926-2018)

With the death of Alan S. Rabson on July 4, 2018, the biomedical research community has lost an important beacon, one that guided and inspired generations of young physician-scientists and counseled many a senior administrator and policy-maker in the arena of cancer research.

Born and raised in New York City (Brooklyn), Alan Rabson graduated from Downstate Medical School in 1950. After a year-long Medicine Internship in Boston, and because of his interest in cancer, he decided to become a pathologist. His training was interrupted, however, by the Korean war, and he joined the Public Health Service, with assignments to the Epidemiology Intelligence Unit in Atlanta, GA, and as Director of the Air Pollution Heath Study (CDC) in Detroit, MI. After a year of Research Fellowship in the Virus Laboratory at University of Michigan studying polioviruses with Thomas Francis, he returned to residency in pathology, first in New Orleans and then, in 1955, at the Laboratory of Pathology of the NCI for a final year of training. Shortly after, he and his beloved wife Dr. Ruth Kirchstein (d. 2009), set up residence on the NIH Campus, where they were an integral part of the intellectual landscape.

After obtaining his Board Certification in Anatomic (1956) and Clinical Pathology (1957), he joined the staff of the Laboratory of Pathology at NCI. There, he soon combined the practice of Anatomic Pathology with an active laboratory research program. As the Clinical Center grew and the NCI’s Laboratory of Pathology was called on to provide anatomic pathology diagnostic services for the entire Clinical Center, the staff grew and the Laboratory was approved to host a training program in Anatomic Pathology. The Program, still active today, is one of the few ACGME-sponsored primary training programs at the Clinical Center.

Rabson soon became a key personality at the Laboratory of Pathology. His broad training (medicine, epidemiology, pathology, virology), his sharp and inquisitive mind, and an insatiable curiosity enabled him to combine a busy diagnostic practice with a productive scientific experimental laboratory. He made use of clinical and morphological observation as the take-off point for scientific investigation. He personified the essence of Pathology as a bridge discipline, a discipline well-suited to translate empirical knowledge into science-based understanding of disease upon which to build progress for diagnosis and treatment. For example, Rabson reviewed the autopsy findings of Ewing sarcoma patients treated at the Clinical Center and derived the first Ewing sarcoma cell lines from surgical specimens that eventually enabled the identification of the oncogenic chromosomal translocation diagnostic of Ewing sarcoma. His laboratory research also aimed at elucidating the possible role of DNA viruses (e.g., EBV, Papova viruses) as causal agents of cancer. Consistent traits of Rabson’s research were its utilization of simple technologies, clever experimental design, and its often collaborative nature. His pragmatic mind conceived doable, elegant, and conclusive demonstrations of the capacities of nature. Recovering Herpes simplex virus from a human sympathetic ganglion to demonstrate the site of latency and using irradiated Herpes simplex virus to show that its growth in Xeroderma Pigmentosum cells was impaired when compared to growth in cells with normal DNA repair capacity are but two examples. His research also focused on EBV and Herpes saimiri, two DNA viruses capable of causing lymphoma in humans and the New World monkey (Marmoset). He was open to new ideas and proposed in 1983 that a virus similar to EBV might be the cause of Kaposi’s sarcoma, driving the endothelium to proliferate. A hypothesis at the time, it was later confirmed when HHV-8 (KSHV) was identified as the causal agent. Rabson's numerous and diverse scientific contributions (180 peer-reviewed papers) stem from his constant search for ripe opportunities to advance knowledge.

For those of us who were associated with the NCI’s Laboratory of Pathology in the decade of the 70s, his character and personality were most inspirational. His ethics and collegiality were of the highest nature (no one has ever heard Rabson bad-mouth a colleague). His natural modesty combined with his intelligence made him universally appreciated and respected. Rabson also knew that the younger minds were the most fertile ground, and he would devote much more time and attention to a high school senior visiting the Laboratory than to a Congressional delegation. His interest in humanity made him familiar with the smallest details of the roles played by scientists and other actors in many significant discoveries in cancer biology and advances in diagnostic pathology. A keen observer of people, he would relate stories about scientists and their discoveries. For instance, his way to tell us that hard work, not luck, is at the core of progress, was to tell us how George Klein, a pre-eminent tumor virologist who spent a sabbatical period in the lab, would spend long hours, non-stop, at the fluorescence scope counting EBNA-positive cells.

In 1975, Rabson was called upon to direct the Division of Cancer Biology (NCI), but he nonetheless remained deeply engaged in the Laboratory of Pathology and was instrumental in creating an environment that facilitated innovation and productivity. His vision and insight led to the recruitment of a significant number of pathologists who became pre-eminent in their fields of activity. As an administrator directing the Division of Cancer Biology and Diagnostics, the Cancer Centers Program, and, after 1995, as Deputy Director of the NCI until his retirement (2015), Rabson continued to have a most positive impact. The personality traits that made him a catalyst at the laboratory level enabled him to be an effective administrator at a larger institutional scale. He created a productive environment by minimizing friction, he dispensed straightforward critical advice—a quality much appreciated among his peers in top leadership positions—and, above all, he retained his generosity toward the younger scientists by providing invaluable guidance to those who sought it.

One expression of his generosity, pragmatism, and problem-solving drive was the help he constantly provided to friends and persons unknown to him who were facing cancer and who reached out for advice. It is a remarkable fact that since 2012, the NIH Directors Awards include the “Alan Rabson Award for Clinical Care,” bestowed on an NIH employee who exemplifies exceptional commitment to assisting families who look to the NIH for help. How a physician trained in disciplines that are relatively hidden from the patient was able to develop a practice that reached the world is a powerful testimony to his humanity.

Dr. Rabson is remembered by all as an inspirational mentor, a generous and compassionate friend, and a caring leader. He guided a whole generation of NIH scientists to boldly take creative risks. Alan always took the time to visit and provide advice based on his broad range of experiences. His insights and predictions for the future directions of science were always amazingly accurate. He lives on in the hearts and minds of all the scientists he guided, and all the patients he helped.

José Costa, Elaine S. Jaffe, Peter Howley, Lance Liotta

July 2018.

José Costa, MD, is Emeritus Professor of Pathology at Yale University School of Medicine and University of Lausanne. [email protected]

Elaine S. Jaffe, MD, is Chief of the Hematopathology Section at the Laboratory of Pathology, NCI [email protected]

Peter Howley, MD, is Shattuck Professor of Pathological Anatomy at Harvard Medical School [email protected]

Lance Liotta, MD, PhD, is University Professor at George Mason University [email protected]