As director of the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, Arnold B. Rabson, MD, is focused on developing research collaborations to address childhood disease both in the United States and globally. The institute’s scientists study the basic mechanisms of and novel approaches to therapy and prevention of a variety of immune, neurodevelopmental, malignant, and endocrine/metabolic disorders. The institute currently has global research collaborations with scientists based in China and is interested in expanding its partnerships.

Rabson’s own laboratory research employs molecular biological tools to explore the basis of pathogenic human retroviral infections as well as gene regulation in human cancers. A major focus of his work is on the pathogenesis of infection by the human T-cell leukemia type 1 (HTLV-1), thought to infect more than 10 million people worldwide and a major cause of disease in Japan, the Caribbean, Brazil, parts of central Africa, New Guinea, and the indigenous population of Australia.