CASSS is excited to announce the winners of the 2025 Bioassays Next-Generation Investigator (NGI) Awards. The Bioassays Symposium presents an opportunity to discuss current perspectives, strategies, and technologies used for bioassays. Next Generation Investigator Awards are an excellent opportunity for graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and early career industrial scientists to meet, network, and participate in exchanging knowledge with industry peers from across the world with waived registration and grants to offset travel expenses.
The 2025 award winners are Andrea Parsons, Pfizer, Inc., and Long Zheng, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.
Andrea Parsons, Pfizer, Inc.
Andrea Parsons began her research career at Immune Design in 2012, where she worked in the in vivo biology department. Her work centered on investigating vector induced CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses, drug efficacy and dosing to support four IND submissions. In 2022, Parsons joined L-Seagen (now Pfizer), to work on potency assay development. She specializes in developing cytotoxicity assays, engineering cell lines and creating novel bioassays for secondary mechanisms of action.
In 2021, Parsons graduated with her PhD in biomedical sciences from Icahn School of Medicine – Mount Sinai. There she made significant contributions, exploring the impact of exosomes on immunogenicity during influenza infection, identifying neutralizing antibodies and small molecules capable of blocking entry and replication of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), and identifying unique cross-reactive epitopes that arise during HCMV infection.
Long Zheng, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
Long Zheng is a scientist at Bristol-Myers Squibb, specializing in bioassay development for biologics potency strategy. With a background in pharmaceutical engineering and a PhD in molecular biology, he has extensive experience in designing, optimizing, and validating bioassays to support drug development and regulatory submissions. Currently, Zheng focuses on multiplexed target binding method development, ensuring the accuracy and consistency of potency assessments for biologics.
Before joining BMS, he gained over 8 years research experience in antibody engineering and cell therapy. His expertise spans data science, oncology, and immunology, with a strong emphasis on method development and troubleshooting. Zheng is passionate about bridging scientific innovation with practical application and advancing technologies to drive the development of safe and effective therapeutics.