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