Robert L. Jacobs, MD, PA

Robert L. Jacobs, MD entered the United States Air Force after graduation from high school. He was trained by the Air Force in Primary and Advanced Russian Studies at Syracuse University and in Cryptoanalytical Studies at Goodfellow AFB, Texas. He served within the Air Force Intelligence Service, a branch of NSA, during the height of the “Cold War”, monitoring the Russian ICBM missile ranges and space program. He was in the European theatre during the Cuban Missile Crisis and erection of the Berlin Wall. He left the military to attend the Medical College of Alabama, graduating in 1968. He served a rotating internship at Malcomb Grow USAF Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in allergy/immunology at Wilford Hall USAF Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.

He was assigned a staff positon in the Allergy/Immunology Department and moved up to become the Chairman and Training Program Director, Consultant to the Surgeon General in Internal Medicine and Allergy/Immunology, and Special Assistant to the Surgeon General concerning facilities and staffing associated with allergy services worldwide. During his tenure as Chairman and Director of the Training Program, he designed the physical plant within Wilford Hall Medical Center currently housing the Allergy/Immunology Department with the foresight to predict the growth of Immunology within the field and to be prepared with adequate training slots and facilities for the staff to be able to maintain an excellence that the Allergy/Immunology Department continues to achieve. During this period, Dr. Jacobs and staff designed and wrote the guidelines of the modern training programs for Allergy/Immunology which remains the criteria that training programs must meet. Clinical Research, however, became the driving passion for Dr. Jacobs as the field of Allergy/Immunology became scientifically-based. Clinical studies on chronic nasal disease, drug interactions, adverse responses to immunizations, and insect sting reactions were carried out during the tenure at Wilford Hall Medical Center.

For most of his professional life, Dr. Jacobs has been involved with a group of diseases that are the most frustrating within the field of pulmonary medicine, the idiopathic interstitial lung diseases. By investigating the environments of these patients, Dr. Jacobs has shown that most of these difficult problems are caused by exposure to organic dusts within closed spaces, usually the home.  This publication has been selected by the pulmonary journal, Chest, as the second most important work on interstitial lung disease in the recent past. Dr. Jacobs has several publications concerning these problems. He has been honored with a lifetime achievement award for his work with patients with these disorders by the San Antonio Business Journal in collaboration with University Health System, University of the Incarnate Word, and others.

Dr. Jacobs and Dr Daniel Ramirez started our current group in 1996, when it was known as Jacobs & Ramirez Allergy & Immnology.   He, along with his wife and children, established Biogenics Research Institute and Biogenics Research Chamber for the study of allergic, immunologic, and chronic respiratory tract diseases.

Dr. Jacobs continues to work very hard to maintain an excellence in the field of allergy, asthma, and clinical immunology in the clinical and research settings.