Bioanalysis Rising Star Award finalist: Brendan Powers

Nominated by: Aaron Ledvina, Labcorp Drug Development (WI, USA)

Supporting comments:

“In 2021, Brendan has conceived and performed lab work, and driven high-quality work on aptamers as an alternative to conventional immuno-precipitation reagents. Aptamers have some truly compelling advantages verses the established approach from several standpoints, including avoidance of animal product usage (important in the EU), better manufacturing control (regulatory), equivalent or better assay performance as a reagent (scientific) and superior cost effectiveness (business). In addition to his work on aptamers, also in 2021, Brendan has pioneered workflows on characterizing and quantitating the isotype of anti-drug antibodies (ADA) for biologics. This foundational work will add significant biological nuance to traditional ADA characterization techniques. Either of these projects individually would be impressive work. Taken together, Brendan has significantly advanced the capabilities of Labcorp Drug Development Bioanalytical services. This positions us well to serve the evolving portfolio of pharma companies.

Brendan also consistently makes time in his schedule to serve as a technical resource to his team (he leads eight scientists). At the same time, Brendan promotes talent development. Specifically, Brendan took the initiative to gather approximately three dozen manuscripts, which cover important technical topics at a fundamental level. He works through these manuscripts with his direct reports; typically, 1−2 papers per month.”

Describe the main highlights of your bioanalytical work 

I began my career in bioanalysis in 2018 after completing my PhD in biochemistry with a focus on quantitative proteomic analysis by LC−MS. With the rapid increase in biologic therapeutics (antibodies, proteins and peptides), I was well positioned to apply my expertise. I began by developing a rapid, generic LC−MS method for the quantification of a human antibody in primate serum. I also collaborated with a colleague on intact protein quantitation by high resolution mass spectrometry. After these initial projects, I knew there was room for improvement and standardization of our LC-MS workflows for protein bioanalysis.

I was awarded internal funding for multiple innovation projects to advance protein bioanalysis by LC−MS. First, I systemically optimized our magnetic bead-based affinity enrichment workflow that was amenable to automation, cost-effective, and robust in a CRO environment. The workflow was adapted to create a generic, plug-and-play methodology for preclinical bioanalysis of antibodies. Finally, the preclinical antibody workflow was further optimized to use an aptamer affinity reagent. More recently, I developed our first LC−MS assay for anti-drug antibody analysis and isotyping.