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Doesn't Boyd Graves name him as one of the originators of the Special Virus Program that brought about AIDS? [EMAIL PROTECTED] /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ F.C. Robbins, Virus Researcher, Dies at 86 August 5, 2003 By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN Dr. Frederick C. Robbins, a pediatrician who shared a Nobel Prize in 1954 for discovering a way to grow the polio virus in a test tube and paving the way for the vaccines that have eliminated the crippling disease from much of the world, died yesterday in Cleveland. He was 86 and until earlier this year worked at Case Western Reserve University, where he was a university professor emeritus. The significance of the polio discovery, made with two other scientists in Boston in 1949, went far beyond the ability to grow the virus and even beyond the development of the polio vaccines that eliminated the need for iron lungs. This spring, more than 50 years after their discovery, scientists in Hong Kong and elsewhere identified the novel coronavirus that causes SARS by using the laboratory technique that Dr. Robbins's team developed. Their tissue culture technique for growing viruses yielded a number of unexpected dividends that expanded the scope of infectious diseases studies as scientists isolated an increasing number of viruses that cause common ailments like measles. It also had important implications for cancer because it allowed scientists to study its relationship to viruses. As scientists learned to introduce viruses and other substances into cells to disrupt their metabolism, their tissue culture technique became a powerful new tool in understanding the biology of normal and abnormal molecules and cells, including those in cancers. That technique was "one of the major discoveries in virology, cell biology and molecular biology in the 20th century," said Dr. George Miller, a virologist at Yale who worked with Dr. Robbins. Dr. Miller also said that the technique "allowed us to go ahead and study many viruses in detail and that could not have been done" without the work by Dr. Robbins and his partners, Dr. John F. Enders and Dr. Thomas H. Weller. Dr. Robbins had many careers, as a chief of pediatrics, laboratory researcher, clinician specializing in infectious diseases, medical educator, dean of Case Western Reserve's medical school, president of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a leader in health policy. As a medical educator, Dr. Robbins served as a mentor to many doctors, including Dr. David Satcher, who was the surgeon general of the Public Health Service from 1998 to 2002 and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before that. "Dr. Robbins was what you would always like someone to be as a mentor," said Dr. Samuel L. Katz, a virologist and pediatrician at Duke University, who worked with him. In 1948, when Dr. Robbins joined Dr. Enders's laboratory at Children's Hospital in Boston, there was no convenient way for scientists to work with viruses in the laboratory. The vast majority of such research at that time had to be conducted on eggs, mice, monkeys and other animals. The three scientists focused on polio, then one of the most feared diseases, and though the group's work involved basic research it had a practical aim. Dr. Robbins's team wanted to grow polio and other viruses in the laboratory so they could make vaccines. Using a mixture of human embryonic skin and muscle tissue, they were able to grow the viruses, and their achievement enabled Dr. Jonas Salk to develop his polio shots and Dr. Albert Sabin to develop a polio vaccine that could be swallowed on a sugar cube. The tissue culture technique "also opened the whole field of virology," Dr. Katz said. It helped scientists discover new respiratory viruses and allowed them to culture the measles virus to make a vaccine against it. Frederick Chapman Robbins was born on Aug. 25, 1916, in Auburn, Ala., and grew up in Columbia, Mo., where he played polo and won ribbons as a horseman. His parents, Prof. William J. Robbins and Christine Chapman Robbins, were botanists. Professor Robbins taught botany at the University of Missouri and was a noted mycologist who later became director of the New York Botanical Garden and a professor of botany at Columbia. Frederick Robbins received his undergraduate degree at the University of Missouri and his medical degree from Harvard. He then began training as a pediatrician at Children's Hospital in Boston, but he interrupted his studies to join the Army Medical Corps in World War II. Serving in North Africa and Italy, Dr. Robbins directed epidemiologic studies on hepatitis, typhus and Q fever, an infection caused by a rickettsia. He was awarded a Bronze Star. After the war, Dr. Robbins finished his training in pediatrics and joined the Enders laboratory in 1948. Dr. Weller, who was a roommate with Dr. Robbins in medical school, recalled in an interview yesterday that Dr. Robbins signed on because he "was turned on by my enthusiastic accounts of working with Dr. Enders." (Dr. Enders died in 1985.) In 1949, Dr. Robbins was the senior author of his team's scientific paper describing the growth of the polio virus in tissue culture. The paper was "modest in size and wording but with a sensational content," Dr. Sven Gard, a member of the Nobel committee said in explaining the team's selection for the prize in medicine or physiology. Dr. Miller, the Yale virologist, said that Dr. Robbins's "walking into a laboratory as a young fellow, doing key experiments and winning a Nobel Prize is one of the marvelous stories of medical research." Dr. Robbins stayed at Harvard until 1952, when he moved to Cleveland to be a professor at Case Western and the chief of pediatrics and contagious diseases at Cleveland City Hospital, now MetroHealth Medical Center. >From 1980 to 1985, Dr. Robbins was president of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, where he was credited with creating a solid foundation for programs contributing to national policy on vaccine development, vaccine safety and work force issues, said Dr. Enriqueta Bond, who worked with Dr. Robbins at the institute. Dr. Robbins also developed programs to focus attention on public policy dealing with AIDS at a time when such policy was lacking, said Dr. Bond, who is now president of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund in North Carolina. In the late 1980's, Dr. Robbins helped to establish a collaboration between Case Western and the government of Uganda and Makerere University there for AIDS and tuberculosis programs. Dr. Robbins met his wife, the former Alice Havemeyer Northrop, when she was working as Dr. Weller's laboratory technician. She was the daughter of Dr. John H. Northrop of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in Princeton, N.J., who shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on preparing virus proteins in pure form. But his father-in-law's work had no influence on Dr. Robbins's decision to work in virology, Mrs. Robbins said. In addition to his wife, he is survived by two daughters, Alice Christine Robbins of Northfield, Minn., and Louise E. Robbins of Ithaca, N.Y.; and two brothers, Daniel H. Robbins of Rochester and Dr. William Clinton Robbins of Grand Island, Fla. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/05/obituaries/05ROBB.html?ex=1061073218&ei=1&en=0d6fd8b45e9cb307 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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