The Art of Listening Award honors a caring, receptive health professional in the lives of individuals and families living with genetic conditions.

Alan Rabson, MD, first joined the National Institutes of Health in 1955 as a resident in pathologic anatomy at the Clinical Center. He became a staff member in the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Laboratory of Pathology the following year and was named Deputy Chief of the Laboratory in 1970. In 1975, he was named Director of NCI’s Division of Cancer Biology, Diagnosis, and Centers, where he served until his appointment as Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute in 1995.

As a pathologist with a research interest in viral oncology, Alan has authored, co-authored, and contributed to more than 180 articles in various scientific journals. He is noted for being the first to demonstrate the that latent herpes virus can reside in the human trigeminal ganglion (a collection of cells that enervate the face). This discovery provided evidence that recurring herpes sores could be caused by reactivation of latent herpes virus infection, rather than by reinfection. Alan also demonstrated that human cells could be simultaneously infected by two different DNA viruses, adenovirus-12 and SV-40, laying the groundwork for other important discoveries in this field.

Alan currently holds clinical professorships in pathology at Georgetown University Medical Center, George Washington University in Washington, DC, and at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD. He became an Assistant Surgeon General in the US Public Health Service (PHS) in 1969 and was honored by the PHS with a Meritorious Service Medal in 1969 and a Distinguished Service Medal in 1978. He became a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1987.

Alan received in M.D. from the State University of New York in 1950 and completed his clinical training at Massachusetts Memorial Hospitals (now University Hospital) in Boston and University Hospital in New York City.