Born in
Belgium to a
Russian
Jewish family, Rabinovich came prior to
World War I in
England, where he attended school in
Leeds In 1940, along with
Charlotte Auerbach and
A.J. Clark, he discovered that mustard gas could cause mutations in
fruit flies, founding the science of
mutagenesis. when he moved to the Pharmacology Department of
Guy's Hospital Medical School, London in 1946, but grew more interested in the similar effects of exposure to mustard gas with exposure to
X-rays. Robson's pharmacological research paved the way for the development of the
contraceptive pill in the 1960s. While there he undertook research on the effects of gonadotrophins in pregnancy, and also supervised the Pregnancy Diagnosis Station that had been founded by the Institute's director Professor Francis Crew. In 1932 he received an honorary doctorate (DSc) from the University of Edinburgh, In 1946 he moved to
London as a Reader in Pharmacology at
Guy's Hospital Medical School, and was given a professorship there in 1950. He retired in 1968, and was made Emeritus Professor at Guys. He died in
London on 18 February 1982 aged 79. ==Publications==