Charles Rabkin Retires After 35 Years of Service
, by Jennifer K. Loukissas, M.P.P.
Charles Rabkin, M.D., M.Sc., retired from the National Cancer Institute in 2024 after 35 years of service. Dr. Rabkin received Public Health Service and Unit Commendation Medals for his studies of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Kaposi sarcoma and the Outstanding Service Medal for the molecular epidemiology of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) and HIV-related malignancies.
While an investigator in the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch (formerly the Viral Epidemiology Branch), he investigated chronic infection and inflammation as they relate to increased risk of many types of cancer. His research focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying these associations, particularly for gastric cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, to increase etiologic understanding and diminish burden of disease.
In his studies of gastric cancer, Dr. Rabkin explored pathogenic microbes, modifying host factors, molecular pathologic features, and potential intermediate markers that could be used for screening. He led an international consortium studying the etiologic and clinicopathologic significance of Epstein-Barr virus and, together with Constanza Camargo, Ph.D., senior investigator in the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch, co-led the H. pylori Genome Project (HpGP), which published its findings earlier this year. In other studies, he identified the role of autoimmune gastritis as a factor underlying changing incidence trends and pursued this novel hypothesis using multiple approaches, including examinations of administrative databases and testing for autoantibodies in prospective cohort studies.
His second area of focus was non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a neoplasm of the effector cells that mediate adaptive immunity. He investigated acquired and inherited abnormalities of immune cells that may contribute to their malignant transformation, particularly for AIDS-related lymphoma.
Dr. Rabkin earned an Sc.B. and M.D. from Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, and an M.Sc. in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom, and completed postgraduate training at the University of Colorado, Denver. Before coming to the NCI, he was an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer and a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.