On April 27, 2021, the Huntington Science National Honor Society hosted Mr. Hansen Lee (BSChE, MBA)  as a guest speaker, presenting to many students and faculty on the topic of Covid 19 Pandemic Response. Mr. Lee discussed his company’s pivotal role in quickly developing and rolling out a reliable COVID test during the early stages of the pandemic. 

After an introduction from Mrs. Dame Forbes and Ethan McGuinness, Mr. Lee began  an engaging PowerPoint presentation reviewing his background, his role at Enzo Biochem as the Director of Client and Clinical Operations, and his family’s personal engagement with the fight against COVID. Mr. Lee also delved into testing development and implementation, the community response, a view into the future and concluded with an open Q and A from the audience. Mr. Lee detailed  his background starting out as a chemical engineer and now working with Enzo Biochem, a leading life sciences and biotechnology company here on Long Island that focuses on harnessing genetic processes to develop research tools, diagnostics, and therapeutics, and provides reference laboratory services to the medical community. Mr. Lee explained how Enzo Biochem’s extensive experience in this field and partnering with other companies positioned them very well to rapidly develop reliable cost-effective rapid testing technology to detect the COVID-19 virus.

Mr. Lee shared that his immediate family all played a role in the COVID response.  His wife is a neurosurgery PA who covered the COVID ICU floors during the height of the pandemic, and his children are involved in the design and programming of COVID mapping for the CDC/DOH, working with the US Federal Government. His youngest child is a Coronavirus Operations intern.  

The community impact of the COVID cirus was explained by first providing information on the novel COVID-19 virus and how it quickly evolved into a worldwide pandemic challenging virtually every aspect of society.  His talk took listeners through the timeline of the pandemic, the challenges, the sciences behind the disease, the research, testing, and the vaccination.  Mr. Lee also touched on the future impact of the virus. Mr. Lee entertained multiple questions from the members of the Science Honor Society and encouraged the participants to reach out if they have interests in internships.  Mr. Lee shared his conviction that it is important to help and engage our community in the work that many are doing in COVID relief.

Mr. Lee reviewed the COVID timeline, the research that was conducted for acceptable testing, and shared the process of the set-ups for the ultimate testing sites and scaling up of the community response across Long Island, including how the model to support testing adapted to a new normal of mobile accessibility. Included in the discussion were the challenges they faced due to a lack of testing supplies, personnel, PPE (personal protective equipment) and the difficulty of educating the public.

Additionally, Mr. Lee provided insight into the science behind the testing including the PCR test, antigen tests and antibody tests, and detecting immune responses to past infections and vaccinations. He reviewed the different vaccinations and compared the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Before taking questions and opening up to a broader discussion with the students, Mr. Lee touched on the future related to the continued testing as people return to work, return full time to schools and university, to travel and to larger events and new types of testing methodologies.  Mr. Lee’s presentation provided unique insight and optics into the engagement of an individual, from his personal involvement, his family, and his company with COVID -19 and the impact on our community.