Dr. Phillips Robbins Reflects on Career
The Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) recognized the long and illustrious career of Professor Dr. Phillips Robbins in their January 21 issue.
Dr. Robbins contributed an article for the Reflections section. “Reflections are written in the JBC by some of the most preeminent scientists in the world,” explained Professor and Chair of Molecular & Cell Biology Dr. Carlos Hirschberg. “JBC is an extremely prestigious journal in the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology. So it is only fitting, that Dr. Robbins, who I consider to be one of the finest scientists at BUMC—having been a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and having had continuous funding from NIH for over 47 years—was selected for this type of contribution.”
Added Dr. Robbins, “Just by chance I received the request to write the article on the day I turned 80. There have been about 90 people previously who have written these articles—short, informal, general summaries of their careers. In addition to this article I have published about 40 other papers in the JBC.”
The Reflections article titled, “Stents, Statins, and Other Dumb Luck,” references some of the many highlights of Dr. Robbins career and the scientific giants who mentored or collaborated with him on his many research endeavors.
It details Dr. Robbins “aha” moment, when he was a senior in high school and opened up a physics textbook to find, “that the physical world could be understood and analyzed with algebra.” Between high school and college Dr. Robbins spent some time exploring work as a medical missionary, but then enrolled as an undergraduate at DePauw University. At DePauw he fell in love with biochemistry, which after four years lead him to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to pursue graduate studies in chemistry with H. E. Carter. From U of I, Dr. Robbins went to Massachusetts General Hospital to complete his postdoctoral research in 1955, under the guidance of Fritz Lipmann. About five years later, after his research group transferred from MGH to The Rockefeller University, Dr. Robbins moved on to an appointment in the Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He remained at MIT for nearly 40 years, until joining the faculty of GSDM in 1998. He jokes in the article that, “I plan to retire soon but, to tell the truth, would not even mind if, by chance, I should leave my office feet first!”
The Reflections article is available in full on the JBC website.