Harold Ginsberg, 85; Microbiologist Laid the Foundation for Virology

Harold Ginsberg, a microbiologist who pioneered the study of viruses and infectious diseases, has died. He was 85.

Ginsberg, who died of pneumonia Feb. 2 at Woods Hole, Mass., headed the microbiology departments at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. He also conducted research for the National Institutes of Health.

Colleagues said Ginsberg’s work laid the foundation for the field of virology, the study of viruses and viral diseases.

In the 1950s, while at Western Reserve University (now Case Western), Ginsberg showed that common childhood infections such as atypical pneumonia and pharyngitis are caused by adenoviruses -- a type that can survive long periods outside a host.

Ginsberg’s research demonstrated how the virus invades host cells and causes disease. His work led to the development of vaccines for infections.

“He was one of the founding fathers of modern virology and microbiology,” Dr. Saul J. Silverstein, chairman of microbiology at Columbia’s medical school, told the New York Times.

A native of Daytona Beach, Fla., Ginsberg earned his undergraduate degree from Duke and his medical degree from Tulane.

His first major discovery came while he was stationed at an Army Hospital in England during World War II. After noticing that large numbers of soldiers contracted hepatitis following blood transfusions, Ginsberg determined that the hospital’s pooled plasma supply was giving its patients hepatitis B.

Later in his career, he worked at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, where he studied the simian AIDS virus known as SIV. He published more than 200 scientific papers, and wrote or co-wrote several books, including a widely used microbiology text.

Ginsberg is survived by his wife, Marion; two sons; two daughters; and eight grandchildren.