36 | OCTOBER 29 • 2020 

G

rowing up in 
Farmington Hills, 
Benjamin Pinsky, 
M.D., Ph.D., associate professor 
of pathology and medicine at 
Stanford University Medical 
Center, as well as medical 
director of the Clinical Virology 
Laboratory for Stanford Health 
Care and Stanford Children’
s 
Health, didn’
t necessarily have an 
interest in studying the behavior 
of viruses. All he knew was that 
cell biology fascinated him.
It was after he graduated 
from Harrison High School in 
Farmington Hills in 1992 and 
went to Harvard University that 
he became interested in bio-
chemistry and molecular biol-
ogy. There, he received a bach-
elor’
s degree in biochemistry in 
1996. He spent a few years at 
Harvard working in labs and 
obtained a Ph.D. in molecular 
and cellular biology in 2005 and 
his medical degree in 2007 at 
the University of Washington.
“I got super interested in clin-
ical microbiology and virology,
” 
he said, adding that he began to 
develop viral detection tests. His 
interest is in the clinical impact 
of clinical virology testing.
That interest, paired with 
assistance from his colleagues 
at Stanford’
s Virology Clinical 
Lab, helped the team develop 
and gain FDA approval for one 
of the country’
s first COVID-19 
detection tests.
“We were pretty early on 
this,
” he said. “I saw what was 

going on in China in January. 
The first [COVID-19 genome] 
sequences came out in January.
“My lab adapted [a World 
Health Organization test] to the 
instruments we had available in 
our clinical laboratory. We had 
the test up and running in early 
February,
” he added.
The Stanford test gained 
FDA approval on March 4. The 
Stanford lab, under Pinsky’
s 
direction, tested thousands of 
people in the San Francisco Bay 
area. 
Pinsky, who also holds the 
title of associate director of 
clinical pathology for COVID-
19 testing at Stanford, said they 
are down to testing about 1,000 
people each day. However, the 
lab is ramping up to test around 
6,000 people each day as the 
influenza season begins and 
schools and businesses reopen. 
Stanford’
s test is a nasal swab 
test, which can detect the virus 
in less than 24 hours, although 
Pinsky said turnaround time 
varies depending on test volume 
and patient population. For 
patients from the emergency 
room who are being admitted 
to the hospital and are exhibit-
ing signs of the coronavirus, the 
need for results is more urgent.
“We’
d like to test people as 
quickly as possible,
” he said.

PRIOR TO THE PANDEMIC
Pinsky said his residency train-
ing at Stanford Hospital during 
the H1N1 virus, a swine flu 

pandemic that emerged in 2009, 
prepared him to develop a test 
to detect the current coronavi-
rus.
“H1N1 was as widespread but 
not as devastating as the num-
ber of people who have died 
because of COVID-19,
” he said. 
“That prepared me for this. I’
m 
not surprised that this [current 
pandemic] would occur some-
time in my lifetime. I’
m glad 
I had the experience with the 
H1N1 flu.
”
In addition to his and his 
team’
s work in developing and 
administering the coronavirus 
test, they have published about 
15 articles in scientific journals 
about their work studying the 
new virus.
“We’
re trying to contribute 
to the literature and our knowl-
edge of the infection,
” he said, 
adding that most of the lab’
s 
work has been in diagnostic 
development. 
 Additionally, the team pub-
lished findings on the markers 
of COVID-19 disease severity, 
as well as newer work they’
ve 
done on novel diagnostic and 
prognostic information from 
patients with COVID-19. 
Although scientists have the 
original SARS (Severe Acute 
Respiratory Syndrome) and 
MERS (Middle East Respiratory 
Syndrome) viruses to consider 
when approaching the study of 

COVID-19, what makes this 
novel coronavirus so devastat-
ing is that it is more transmis-
sible to humans than SARS or 
MERS, according to Pinsky.
“The other coronaviruses had 
very high mortality but fewer 
cases,
” he said. “That’
s some-
thing that’
s really new … It can 
go through a population and 
cause such devastation. It’
s a 
generation-defining event.
”
Pinsky, who lives in San 
Francisco, has family who live 
in the Metro Detroit area. His 
parents, Stuart, a retired attor-
ney, and mother Roberta, live 
in Farmington Hills and his 
paternal grandmother, Bernice, 
is still going strong at 94. 
Pinsky grew up as a member of 
Congregation Beth Ahm. 
Dad Stuart Pinsky speaks 
about his son’
s accomplish-
ments with tremendous pride, 
including Benjamin’
s work in 
South America and Africa in 
treating individuals, including 
orphans in Zimbabwe, who had 
acquired viruses. 
 Stuart also mentioned his 
son’
s patent for methods in 
detecting dengue, a mosqui-
to-borne viral disease. 
“We’
re two very proud par-
ents in Farmington Hills,
” said 
his mom and dad.
Meanwhile, Pinsky said his 
clinical laboratory functions 
24/7 to continue research and 
testing services. He added that 
the scientific community and 
the general population can take 
away lessons from the current 
pandemic, namely that all peo-
ple need to be mindful of how 
viruses evolve, how quickly they 
can be transmitted from person 
to person, how they affect health 
detrimentally, and how they can 
jump from animals to humans. 
 “There will be a lot of lessons 
learned on how to handle future 
pandemics,
” Pinsky said. 

Farmington Hills native leads 
Stanford virology lab that created 
one of fi
 rst COVID-19 tests.

ELIZABETH KATZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Lab Leader

HEALTH

