Bruce Rabin

Bruce S. Rabin, M.D., Ph.D. attended medical and graduate school at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He obtained the Ph.D. degree in the scientific discipline of immunology.

In 1970, he joined the faculty of the Department of Pathology and the Center for Immunology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In 1972, Dr. Rabin joined the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School as Director of the Clinical Immunopathology Laboratory.

He focuses his research interest on the importance of finding ways to contribute to maintaining the health of healthy people during the aging process. One of the primary reasons that humans become susceptible to illness is that the immune system fails to properly do its job. Thus, it was a logical step to focus upon factors which alter the function of the immune system during aging. It is stress—a factor which occurs in everyone’s daily life, and is a constant topic of conversation—that Dr. Rabin has found to exert a profound influence on the human immune system and subsequently on health.

He has studied the effect of stress on the immune system and the pathways of communication between the brain and the immune system. His laboratory has made major contributions to understanding of how the brain and the immune system interact and influence an individuals health. He has served on government panels in a variety of capacities to help promote research in mind-body interactions. In addition, he has served as the secretary/treasurer and as the President of the Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society. Dr. Rabin is a Professor of Pathology, Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and is Medical Director of the Healthy Lifestyle Program for the UPMC Health System (UPMC HLP).

The UPMCHS HLP responds to the public’s increasing demand for health enhancing and stress coping behaviors that build upon existing knowledge and contribute new understandings of the effectiveness and safety of innovative approaches to wellness and disease management. Individuals can look to the UPMC HLP to help them develop and adhere to behaviors that will maintain wellness and lower the risk of developing disease.
As a result of his work to promote wellness, in 2002, Dr. Rabin was recognized by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as one of twelve individuals who are making a difference in health care in western Pennsylvania. He was also honored in 2003 by the Pittsburgh Business times as a Health Care Hero.

Dr. Rabin’s research efforts have yielded over 300 publications to the scientific literature and his research laboratory has trained over 40 scientists. His book, Stress, Immune Function, and Health: The Connection, was published by John Wiley & Sons in February, 1999.