Steven D. Zink, Ph.D.
Research Interests
The Division of Laboratory Operations oversees the Wadsworth Center's operations at five facilities in the Albany area, totaling ~900,000 square feet of space and over 210 acres of real estate. The facilities include:
- Biggs Laboratory at the Empire State Plaza
- David Axelrod Institute for Public Health on New Scotland Avenue in Albany
- Griffin Laboratories in Guilderland
- Life Sciences Innovation Building on New Scotland Avenue in Albany
- Division of Laboratory Quality Certification in Albany
The Division provides services that support all the public health missions of the Wadsworth Center, including clinical and environmental testing, research, education, and regulatory oversight. The Division is comprised of the following programs:
- Facilities Management – engineering, maintenance, and custodial services; transportation services between facilities; instrumentation and automation services for the maintenance and repair of scientific equipment.
- Safety Office – ensure safe, healthy work environment; mitigate workplace risks and hazards; compliance with applicable state and federal rules, laws, regulations; programs in biosafety, chemical, fire, occupational, environmental and radiation safety; laboratory inspections; accident, incident investigations and follow-up.
- Mail, Receiving and Shipping – receiving and ship out of mail, supplies and equipment across all five sites.
- Equipment Inventory and Asset Management - maintain a Center-wide equipment inventory, accounting for, and properly safeguarding, all laboratory, office, and operations equipment; track each piece of equipment from acquisition, during use, to final disposition.
- Multimedia Services – oversees the Wadsworth Center’s internal and external web presence and provides photography and design services for research and administration.
- Glassware – glassware services to the Center's public health and research laboratories.
- State Order Desk - coordinate the assembly and ship out of diagnostic sampling kits to members of the health care community in need of public health testing services.
Since joining the Wadsworth Center in 2007, Steven Zink has taken on increasingly significant responsibilities. From 2007 to 2011, he worked in the Biodefense Lab, developing new methodologies for detecting and identifying biothreat agents, managing the BSL-3 safety program, and overseeing the lab's quality assessment program.
Steven Zink has led the NYS mosquito surveillance program, successfully managing the testing of mosquito pools annually for human disease-causing viruses that are transmitted by mosquitoes in NYS, including West Nile virus (WNV) and Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus (EEEV). He has collaborated with county-level agencies to coordinate the collection of mosquito samples from across the state and has made significant improvements in cost efficiency and turnaround time through multiplexing and automating nucleic acid extraction procedures. By 2015, he was able to test every submitted mosquito pool for all 10 viruses. He has made significant contributions to the field of mosquito biology, vector surveillance, molecular testing, and vector-virus interactions through collaborative research efforts.
Steven Zink helped create and oversee a Centralized Accessioning (CA) program for the Division of Infectious Disease. This new unit was combined with the Quality Assurance (QA) program to create the Division of Infectious Disease QA/CA Program, of which Steven Zink is Director. As part of the Program's centralized accessioning activities, he is responsible for ensuring that all clinical specimens delivered to David Axelrod Institute are properly processed, accessioned into CLIMS, the Clinical Laboratory Information Management System, and delivered to the appropriate clinical testing lab for analysis. The team has increased processing capacity from 5,584 samples in 2013 to over 54,000 samples annually in 2023.
Dr. Zink also holds various internal and external service positions, including being a member of the Center's Institutional Biosafety Committee and Assistant Responsible Official for the Center's CDC-regulated Select Agent Program from 2018 to 2024.
Dr. Zink has taken on the role of Deputy Project Director for the new Wadsworth Center Laboratory, scheduled to be completed in 2030, which will combine all five Wadsworth Center sites into a single state-of-the-art laboratory and administrative building.