2023 Bioanalysis Outstanding Contribution Award: meet the judges
Meet the 2023 Bioanalysis Outstanding Contribution Award judges
<Back to the 2023 Bioanalysis Outstanding Contribution Award
Stephanie Cape
Stephanie heads the Research and Development and Delivery teams within Scientific Affairs at Labcorp Drug Development (NJ, USA). In this role, Dr Cape concentrates on advancing laboratory technologies to enable new capabilities in characterization, clinical chemistry, biomarkers and bioanalysis. Over the past 12 years with Labcorp, Dr Cape has served in a variety of scientific leadership roles, has been actively engaged in a number of industry groups and has grown a particular interest in enabling new technologies. Recently, she served in a number of leadership positions within the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) organization, including as a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee, Co-Chair of the Bioanalytical Community, Chair for the Land O’ Lakes conference (MN, USA) and Chair of the Mass Spectrometry Focus Group. She also participates in the Bioanalysis Zone and Bioanalysis Journal as a subject matter expert. Dr Cape has a particular passion for patient-centric sampling and has found a community of like-minded colleagues through the Global Patient Centric Sampling Interest Group (PCSIG) and AAPS Microsampling and Patient Centric Sampling team where she is an active contributor. Dr Cape has authored over 30 peer-reviewed publications including four book chapters and has contributed numerous posters and presentations. She received her BSc in Chemistry from the University of Illinois- Urbana/Champaign (IL, USA) in 2003 and her PhD in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin- Madison (WI, USA) in 2007.
Robert MacNeill
Robert is a Director of Bioanalysis at Pharmaron’s Exton site, legacy Absorption Systems (PA, USA). Having accumulated well over 20 years of CRO experience in regulated LC-MS bioanalysis, Robert enjoys bringing innovation to fruition and has special interests in bioanalytical sample prep-based R&D along with numerous aspects of the quantitative bioanalysis of biologics, especially nucleic acids and biomarkers by LC-MS. Robert is a prominent figure and mentor in the bioanalytical community, the lead author in many peer-reviewed research articles, commentaries and regularly appearing opinion pieces and is a frequent industry speaker. He holds a BSc Hons degree in Chemistry from Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, UK), an MSc in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Huddersfield (Yorkshire, England), one patent with more currently in process and is a Chartered Chemist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (London, UK). Additionally, Robert has been a Zone Leader for Bioanalysis Zone since its inception and is an ever-present coauthor of the various editions of the Bioanalysis Glossary.
Chang Liu
Chang currently leads the hardware research work on mass spectrometry sample preparation and sample introduction technologies at SCIEX (MA, USA). His team invented the Acoustic Ejection Mass Spectrometry (AEMS) technology and developed its applications in high-throughput drug discovery. Chang earned his BSc in Chemistry from Peking University (Beijing, China) and his PhD in Analytical Chemistry from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). Chang is the winner of the 2021 Bioanalysis Outstanding Contribution Award (BOSCA) and the 2022 Young Investigator Award from the Chinese American Society for Mass Spectrometry (CASMS). Dr Liu has published more than 40 research papers and holds 15 issued patents. He is also the editor of the book ‘High-Throughput Mass Spectrometry in Drug Discovery’.
Melanie Anderson
Melanie is a Principal Scientist at Merck, Sharp and Dohme (NJ, USA) with over 20 years of experience in clinical development. In her current role, Melanie evaluates and implements patient-centric sampling approaches for drug level quantitation and biomarker testing in clinical research. She recently co-led a cross-functional team at Merck working to operationalize decentralized clinical trial technology. Melanie currently co-chairs the Patient-Centric Sampling Interest Group (PCSIG) on diagnostics and co-chairs the Clinical Pharmacology Leadership Group (CPLG)/ADME Sciences Leadership Group (TALG) IQ Patient Centric Sampling Group, which published an editorial entitled ‘Will patient-centric sampling become the norm for clinical trials after COVID-19?’ in Nature Medicine in November 2020. Melanie received her BA in Chemistry from Hasting College (NE, USA) and an MSc in Chemistry from Lehigh University (PA, USA).
Chris Smith
Chris has been in the bioanalytical field for over 25 years working for various pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca (Cambridge, UK), GSK (Brentford, UK) and Aventis (Paris, France) in scientific as well as management positions. Currently located in Sydney, Australia, Chris works at Elanco (IN, USA), a global leader in animal healthcare, in the role of Director of Bioanalytics. The animal healthcare business was a new role for Chris as he has spent the majority of his time in the human pharmaceutical industry working in clinical and pre-clinical environments with small molecules. The challenges of this role have made for an interesting change since arriving in Sydney 5 years ago. Chris works with all kinds of molecules and is responsible for developing new strategies for residue chemistry, working on new models for companion animals, supporting the regulatory teams with FDA submissions and balancing Elanco internal labs’ global capability by outsourcing partnerships to improve competitiveness.
Stephanie Pasas-Farmer
Stephanie is a recognized bioanalytical expert in the areas of discovery and regulated bioanalysis for pharmaceutical, biologics and hybrid technologies, including antibody–drug conjugate (ADC) technology. Utilizing her 20-year career focused on bioanalytical operations across global biopharmaceutical companies, CROs and consulting, Stephanie founded Ariadne Software (KS, USA) in 2018 and led the development of Red Thread™, guiding it from inception to production as an artificial intelligence-enabled solution for common challenges in bioanalytical data review. Prior to Ariadne Software, Stephanie created BioData Solutions (MA, USA), a scientific advisor firm whose aim is to help sponsors advance early stage molecules into potential new drug candidates with bioanalysis support and regulatory compliance planning. Prior to BioData Solutions, she led a team of scientists at a global bioanalytical laboratory focused on the support of large molecule and ADC programs using LBA, LC‐MS/MS and cell-based assays. Earlier career roles included management responsibility for quality control functions of bioanalytical laboratory operations, in addition to Business Development and Research Scientist positions. Stephanie earned her PhD and MSc degrees with honors in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Kansas (USA). She received a BSc degree in Chemistry from St. Mary’s College of Notre Dame (IN, USA).
Nikunj Tanna
Nikunj Tanna is a Principal Scientist at Waters corporation (MA, USA) who is passionate about meeting people, making connections and learning from every conversation. His role at Waters focuses on complete workflow solutions for quantitation of small and large molecules. These end-to-end workflows include automation, novel sample preparation and chromatographic separation approaches, followed by detection using TQ and/or HRMS platforms. As part of his current role, Nikunj collects quantifiable Voice of Customer (VoC) information to inform short-, mid- and long-term research and development. In his previous role as General Supervisor and Bioanalytical Scientist at Berg LLC (MA, USA), he led a clinical diagnostics team focused on providing PK support for the company’s small molecule drug candidates. He also lead the method development group responsible for developing complex bioanalytical/clinical methods using IP-LC-MS/MS and performing analytical and clinical validation and routine analysis for the company’s protein based prostate cancer biomarker panel. Nikunj completed his BSc in Biotechnology and MSc in Bioanalytical Sciences at the University of Mumbai (India) and later an MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Northeastern University (MA, USA).
Chad Briscoe
Chad is the Executive Vice President of Global Bioanalytical Services at Celerion (NE, USA), driving short- and long-term solutions for sponsors through a highly collaborative strategy involving sales, operations and science. He has successfully achieved this across his various roles ranging from his current role leading Celerion’s global bioanalysis division, leading a European bioanalytical sales team and as a Chief Scientific Officer. He works with global pharmaceutical companies to help them better plan for and execute the bioanalytical and biomarker aspects of clinical trials. In this role as a solution provider, Chad leverages his nearly 27 years of experience as a Bioanalytical Scientist and Executive to bring practical solutions to the ever-increasing complexity of clinical trials. He is a recognized global expert and thought leader in areas such as biomarker analysis, LC-MS/MS bioanalysis and bioanalytical regulations. Chad speaks on various podcasts, has been a frequent speaker at global and regional conferences and is the current Co-Chair of the AAPS Bioanalytical Community. Chad holds a PhD from the University of Nebraska (NE, USA) where he studied drug–protein binding interactions using immunoaffinity chromatography. He also has a Master’s degree from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor’s degree from Alma College (both MI, USA).
Previous judging panels
2021 Bioanalysis Outstanding Contribution Award judges panel