New Investigator Award Judging Panel: Xiwei (Emmi) Zheng

“The Bioanalysis New Investigator Award is important in a way that provides outstanding-young scientists with an opportunity and a route to show their work to others worldwide in the field of bioanalysis from both academia and industry. Through this award, the latest and leading research topics are also gathered and highlighted guiding the development and improvement of novel techniques and methods in bioanalysis. I think this award is not only important to the winner, but also to the participants and the public in terms of knowledge sharing and spreading.”

 

Xiwei (Emmi) Zheng received her BS degree in Chemistry from Jilin University (Jilin, China) in 2010, and her PhD degree in analytical chemistry from Dr. David Hage’s research group at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL; Lincoln, NE USA) in 2015. She then worked as a postdoctoral fellow in David Hage’s group until Spring 2016.  Her research at UNL has mainly focused on the study of drug-or hormone-protein interactions by using the technique of high-performance affinity chromatography (HPAC). She has developed novel methods based on HPAC to rapidly and efficiently measure the equilibrium constants and rate constants for drug-protein interactions. By using HPAC as part of a multi-dimensional system, she has also been able to measure the free fractions of drugs and hormones in complex samples such as serum or those that contain several forms of a drug or more than one binding protein.

In 2016, Xiwei joined Celerion (Lincoln, NE USA) as a Method Development Scientist in the Bioanalytical Services Department. She is involved in the development of bioanalytical methods and assays to study novel drugs and compounds, and the design of the protocol and procedures for the use in various types of bioanalytical studies. Xiwei has published 21 scientific papers and reviews, eight of which have her as the first author. She has won several awards for her work, including the best poster award at the 2012 FACSS meeting, the 2015 Alumni Graduate Research Assistant Award from the UNL Chemistry Department, and the 2015 Bioanalysis Young Investigator Award.