CASSS is excited to announce the winners of the 2026 CE Pharm Next-Generation Investigator (NGI) Award. The CE Pharm Symposium discusses recent developments in capillary electrophoresis (CE) analysis of protein, nucleotide, and small molecule pharmaceuticals. 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 2026 award winners are Marlon Krompholz, Technical University of Braunschweig, Tania Palhano Zanela, Merck & Co., Inc., and Jessica Taylor, Teva Pharmaceuticals.
Marlon Krompholz, Technical University of Braunschweig
Marlon Krompholz completed an apprenticeship as a pharmaceutical technician at Bayer AG before studying pharmacy at the Technical University of Braunschweig, both with honours. Since January 2025, he has been a licensed pharmacist and PhD student in pharmaceutical analysis within the research group of Prof. Dr. Hermann Wätzig at TU Braunschweig, Germany. His work focuses on improving peak integration in Capillary Electrophoresis and Liquid Chromatography using algorithmic and AI solutions. He has already presented his work at several international conferences, including CE Pharm and HPLC and had his first paper published in the journal Electrophoresis in March 2026, for which he received the Best Student Paper award.
Tania Palhano Zanela, Merck & Co., Inc.
Tania Palhano Zanela is a Senior Scientist in Biologics Analytical Research & Development at Merck in Rahway, New Jersey. She earned her PhD in biochemistry from Iowa State University and has expertise in analytical characterization, method development, and critical quality attribute assessment for biopharmaceutical products. Since joining Merck in 2024, she has become a subject matter expert in CE-SDS for early- and late-stage development programs, leading efforts in method readiness, assay optimization, troubleshooting, and platform comparability.
Jessica Taylor, Teva Pharmaceuticals
Jessica Taylor has worked as a Senior Research Associate at Teva Pharmaceuticals for the last five years. At Teva, she has specialized in developing robust analytical methods for the characterization of biotherapeutics. Her work has focused on capillary electrophoresis techniques including capillary gel electrophoresis (CGE), capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE), and image capillary isoelectric focusing (icIEF). Jessica has continuously worked to innovate and optimize capillary methods. Most recently, she has contributed to the advancement of CE techniques through the early evaluation of native fluorescence detection as it compares to traditional UV detection for CGE analysis.