He was born in Auburn, Alabama, and grew up in Columbia, Missouri, attending David H. Hickman High School.

The award was for breakthrough work in isolating and growing the poliovirus in tissue culture, paving the way for vaccines developed by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin.

[1] Robbins was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1962.

[4] In 1980, he assumed the presidency of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine.

Robbins received the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences of the American Philosophical Society in 1999.