Marco Blanco
Principal Scientist, Merck & Co
Marco Blanco is Principal Scientist at Merck, where he supports analytical and development activities across pharmaceutical programmes. With a background in chemical engineering and extensive experience in biologics and small-molecule development, he previously held research roles at the University of Maryland and NIST. He holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware.
Seminars
Thursday 19th November 2026
Panel Discussion: What Should Be Characterized at Drug Substance vs Drug Product Stage?
12:10 pm
- Explore which attributes should be controlled before formulation versus reassessed in the final LNP product
- Debate how much characterization is enough at different stages of development without creating unnecessary analytical burden
- Benchmark industry approaches for defining CQAs, release strategies, and regulatory-ready analytical packages
Wednesday 18th November 2026
Advancing Structural & Analytical Understanding of Lipid Nanoparticles: From SAXS Method Development to Cross-Functional Standardization
1:30 pm
- Applying SAXS and complementary techniques for LNP structural elucidation and conformational assessment
- Challenges in interpreting ensemble-averaged data in heterogeneous nanoparticle systems
- Progress toward developing standardized analytical frameworks for LNP characterization
