Alan Rabson, pioneering scientist and mentor to thousands at NCI, dies at 92

Alan Rabson, one of the premier cancer pathologists of his generation whose most recent title at NCI was scientist emeritus, died on July 4. He was 92.

The cause of death was complications from cerebrovascular disease, said his son Arnold Rabson, the Laura Gallagher Chair of Developmental Biology, director of the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, and professor of pharmacology, pediatrics, pathology and laboratory medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Rabson came to NCI as a resident in pathologic anatomy in 1955.

“In addition to his clinical responsibilities, he rapidly developed a strong research program in tumor virology,” Arnold Rabson said. “He developed new models of virus-induced tumors in rodent models and showed how different tumor viruses can interact to cause disease.

“Through the 1960’s and 70’s, he worked on herpes viruses, and figured out these viruses stay latent in the nerves and reappear later on the skin. This is the key to the biologic behavior of herpes simplex (in the development of recurrent cold sores) and herpes zoster. The latter is the cause of chickenpox and later shingles.”

Al Rabson once told me that the instant a tumor—any tumor—is mentioned, he pictures it in his mind’s eye. It’s a projection of sorts, an encyclopedia of images. His understanding of NCI and its history—the structures, the key players, and who did what to whom—was equally encyclopedic.

His sense of humor was so dry, it crackled. To fully interpret a conversation with Rabson meant learning to listen carefully to what he was saying and pay even closer attention to what he wasn’t saying.

Rabson’s career progressed in perfect 20-year increments. In 1975, after two decades at the institute, he was named director of the Division of Cancer Biology. After two decades, in 1995, he was named the institute’s deputy director. In 2015, after another two decades, he became scientist emeritus.

Beyond his scientif ic and administrative contributions, Al is also remembered by many here at NCI as the compassionate heart of the institute.

Ned Sharpless

Rabson and his wife Ruth Kirschstein came to NIH together and became a graceful power couple. Kirschstein would become a key contributor to the development of a safe and effective polio vaccine and the first woman director of a major institute at the NIH. At one point, Al served as acting NCI director and Ruth as acting NIH director (The Cancer Letter, Oct. 5, 2001).

Their commitment to NCI and NIH was so complete that the two rarely left town, as though keeping an eye on the place. They even lived on campus, in a barracks-like structure Al referred to as “subsidized housing.”

In 2001, Rabson rhapsodized about plans for an NIH perimeter fence.

“Since my wife and I are total wards of the government—we live on this campus in a little government house—we’ve found we actually like the security,” Rabson said to the National Cancer Advisory Board Dec. 4, 2001. “The open campus was wide open, with people wandering around at night.”

Alas, Rabson noted, getting Chinese food delivered would become a problem once the fence goes up (The Cancer Letter, Dec. 14, 2001).

Rabson had what he called a “practice.” It started soon after he arrived at NCI. A breast cancer patient he didn’t know called, seeking medical advice. Ultimately, Rabson became known as the guy who took calls.

He provided a great deal more than referrals.

Rabson’s advice was based on his scientific judgment of therapies that seemed most promising. Plus, he understood the facts on the ground in the U.S. and around the world. He had the ability to tell a patient to go see Dr. So-and-So in her town, and—if necessary—gently recommend staying away from Dr. Horseface in the same geographic area and area of expertise.

And since he instructed patients to say, “Al Rabson recommended that I call,” it was the doctor (often someone Rabson had trained or knew personally) who returned the call and stayed on the phone as long as necessary.

When I referred patients to Rabson, I warned them to stay by the phone after emailing him, because Al would step out of whatever meeting he happened to be in. Usually, he called within minutes.

It was obvious that Rabson didn’t care whether the people he was helping were rich and powerful Washingtonians or taxi-driving immigrants. They could call him, and they could call again.

“They are fellow humans, and I usually don’t inquire too seriously about whether they are human,” Rabson said to me once, when Otis Brawley and I were writing a book on the state of cancer medicine. “Usually, I find out who sent them to me, out of curiosity, not that it matters.”

And, of course, payment was out of the question.

The practice was about Rabson putting his formidable expertise in the service of mankind. I came to think of it as something of a religious observance. While NCI cycled between good times and bad, depending on directors and politicians, the Rabson practice always boomed.

My conversation with Rabson, in June 2010, in which we focus on his practice appears here.

“Beyond his scientific and administrative contributions, Al is also remembered by many here at NCI as the compassionate heart of the institute,” NCI Director Ned Sharpless wrote in an email announcing Rabson’s death. “He was exceedingly generous with his time and expertise, often reviewing pathology reports and other records for friends and family members of NCI staff, and other acquaintances with cancer diagnoses, patiently and empathetically offering whatever he could to reassure them, or to recommend considering a different approach to treatment.

“Perhaps Al’s greatest legacy at NCI was his role as a wise and generous mentor to several generations of our colleagues and scientific leaders,” Sharpless wrote. “He had an incredible eye for talent, and once he recognized it, he did everything he could to provide outstanding mentoring and advocacy.”

Writing on an NCI blog, Stephen Chanock, director of the NCI Division of Cancer Epidemiology & Genetics, described Rabson as “a great patriotic leader of the NCI who shaped its vision over the past decades; that his death came on July 4th seems appropriate.

“So many of the successes of the NCI can be mapped directly to his continued commitment to its high standards as well as its focus on tackling the nation’s cancer challenges,” Chanock wrote. “He led by example and was not afraid to question the reigning scientific norms, trusting his intellect and his intuition, two hallmarks of a great scientist. What was even more remarkable was his kind and deft personal touch, which he applied so easily to mentoring generations of scientists as well as communicating with the public.”

When Douglas Lowy, then a scientist in Rabson’s division, obtained results that suggested that an HPV vaccine might be feasible, Rabson offered support.

“My division director, Alan Rabson, as soon as he heard about the results, was enthusiastic, and also supported our research in this area, although, I should point out that John [Schiller] and I had no track record in the study of the structural papillomavirus protein, in immunology, or in vaccine development,” Lowy told me after he and Schiller won the 2017 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award (The Cancer Letter, Sept. 6, 2017).

Jeffrey White came to see Rabson soon after finishing fellowship in hematology/oncology. “I remember visiting his office and being impressed by his pictures of many distinguished people, especially one of former U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Jordan,” White, director of the Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the NCI Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis, wrote on the blog. “In that first meeting, Dr. Rabson gave me much more time than I ever could have expected and guided me through the process of who to talk with and how to choose a lab to work in. That was 1990 and for more than 20 years I had the good fortune of being able to meet with Dr. Rabson periodically and receive his sage advice.”

Sometime in the early 1990s, while dialing Rabson’s number at the Division of Cancer Biology, I found myself pondering his last name.

What in the world is “Rabson?” What could it possibly mean? When Al picked up the phone, I asked, “What in the world is Rabson? Is your real name Rabinowitz?”

It was.

Rabson was born into an immigrant family in 1926. His father owned a candy store in Jamaica, Queens, just across the line from Brooklyn. Somewhere along the way, Al decided that he needed to make himself a little less conspicuously Jewish and thus more palatable to medical schools.

Renaming himself Jones, Smith or Ferguson would have been absurd. Instead, he took a cue from a camera store in Manhattan, he told me. The store was originally called Rabinowitz & Sons, but before his eyes—possibly to save money on lettering—it became Rabson’s. (I’ve just looked it up, and it seems the place operated at 111 W. 52nd St.)

Rabson, like Rabinowitz, means a rabbi’s son. With Rabsonian wisdom, Al changed his last name without actually changing it, and if this little nip-and-tuck helped him get into Long Island School of Medicine, the world has become a better place for it.

Rabson trained thousands of oncologists and pathologists, ran an NCI division, where he supported lifesaving science, became a PHS’s Rear Admiral Upper Half, was elected to the Institute of Medicine, and—after Richard Klausner, before Andrew von Eschenbach—stepped in as NCI acting director. He was also rumored to have been a serious candidate for the NCI director’s job on at least one occasion.

In 2005, NCI created the annual Alan S. Rabson Award Lecture for Intramural Research. In 2009, the House appropriations committee directed the institute to establish a fellowship called the Alan S. Rabson Award. In 2012, NIH established the Alan S. Rabson Award for Clinical Care, which goes to an employee who demonstrates exceptional commitment to assisting NIH patients and their families.

Also, NIH established the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual pre-doctoral fellowship to promote diversity in health-related research.

A biography of Kirschstein, published by NIH, is posted here.

An interview with Rabson, recorded as part of an oral history project in 1997, is posted here.

Rabson and Kirschstein at a reception circa 2005

Survivors include his son, Arnold Rabson and wife, Barbara Barnett, of Princeton, NJ; a grand-daughter, Lindsay Maciejak and her husband, Rafa Maciejak, and two great grandsons, residing in Brooklyn.

A funeral will be held privately, but a celebration of Rabson’s life and accomplishments will be held at the NIH at a future date.

In lieu of flowers, donations should be made to the NIH Patient Emergency Fund, directed to participants in NCI studies: