The east wing of the CWRU School of Medicine has been renamed the Frederick C. Robbins Building following Oct. 5 action by the Case Western Reserve University Board of Trustees.

Frederick C. Robbins

The board moved to honor the University's sole resident Nobel Laureate (he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1954 for his role in isolating the virus responsible for poliomyelitis) on the recommendation of the medical school's interim dean, Jerold Goldberg, and faculty leaders at the school. Robbins, medical school dean emeritus, university professor emeritus, and former head of the Department of Pediatrics and Contagious Diseases at what is now MetroHealth Medical Center, completes 50 years of service to the university community in 2002.

Trustees have named only two other buildings on campus for distinguished faculty members: the Morley Building for the late Edward Morley, chemistry professor, and the Harland Wood Building, for the late biochemistry professor.

Robbins was dean of the medical school from 1966 to 1980. The east wing of the School of Medicine, built in 1969 during his tenure as dean and renovated periodically since then, houses the Health Sciences Library, classrooms and seminar rooms, and faculty offices and laboratories.

May 4, the board of trustees established the Frederick C. Robbins, M.D., Professorship in Child and Adolescent Health, which was made possible through gifts and pledges totaling more than $1.65 million from Robbins' family, friends and colleagues. A pediatrician by training, Robbins helped develop the medical school's Center for Adolescent Health in 1990 and served as its director from 1992 to 2000.

As part of the recognition of Robbins' 50 years of service to the School of Medicine earlier this year, the fifth floor of the east wing of the school was named the Frederick C. Robbins, M.D., Center.