Dr. Robbins is a Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics and Associate Director of the Institute on the Biology of Aging and Metabolism (iBAM) and the Medical Discovery Team on the Biology of Aging at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Robbins received his B.A. from Haverford College, his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and then worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Mulligan at the Whitehead Institute at MIT. He was a Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Director of Basic Research for the Molecular Medicine Institute and Co-Director of the Paul Wellstone Cooperative Muscular Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He then was a Professor of Molecular Medicine at Scripps Research in Jupiter, Florida and Director of the Center on Aging prior to moving to the University of Minnesota.

He was one of the first to identify enhancer elements that regulate transcription at a distance, the first to show that the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor regulates transcription and the first to develop gene therapies for autoimmune disease including an ongoing clinical trial for osteoarthritis. More recently, he was part of a collaborative team that was the first to identify senotherapeutic compounds, able to reduce the senescent cell burden and extend healthspan and lifespan in mouse models, that are in more than 15 clinical trials for age related diseases and conditions.