"We created molecules to block the key stages of HIV infection"
The Challenge Prize in the Discovery category was awarded for research at the intersection of biology, chemistry and medicine. The 2025 laureate invented a reaction that made it possible to turn the concept of click chemistry upside down and look into the world of life with a new quality and create new diagnostic drugs. The Scientific Committee awarded it to Professor Valery Fokin from the University of Southern California for inventing a reaction that defined click chemistry and transformed molecular sciences and the chemistry of living systems. Izvestia talked with the scientist about his developments, including molecules that prevent HIV infection and drugs that only target tumor cells.
"For the first time, scientists were able to assemble complex structures in conditions close to natural conditions"
— Valery Valerievich, could you explain the essence of your research and click chemistry in general as simply as possible?
— To put it simply, my goal is to see how life works at the molecular level. Biology describes processes, but chemical tools are needed to understand them in detail. For a chemist, these are reactions that make it possible to tag molecules, connect them, highlight them, and display the behavior of cells, tissues, and even entire organisms.
Click chemistry is just one such tool. The term was proposed by (an American scientist. — Izvestia) Barry Sharpless described the idea of "fast and clean reactions," but in order for this idea to become a reality, a concrete working example was needed.
The first such reaction, which really worked and determined the whole direction, was created in my laboratory. This is a reaction between two well-known compounds that usually "don't notice" each other. But in the presence of copper sulfate and ascorbic acid, they quickly and selectively form a strong bond under very mild conditions. This was the novelty: for the first time, scientists were able to assemble complex structures in conditions close to natural conditions.
— And this opened up new horizons in chemistry?
— Sometimes a surprisingly simple combination of copper sulfate and vitamin C, which together create the active form of copper, is enough to revolutionize chemistry. Modest, almost "childish" ingredients, but the effect is fundamental.
However, the main thing for me is not the reaction itself, but the fact that it opened the way to a new type of science: chemistry, which allows us to study living systems with molecular precision.
Valery Valerievich Fokin (born May 31, 1971) is a Russian-American chemist. In 1993, he graduated from the Chemistry Faculty of Nizhny Novgorod Lobachevsky State University. In 1998, he received his PhD from the University of Southern California. Fokine completed his postdoctoral internship in the field of catalytic oxidation of alkenes at the Scripps Research Institute. In 2012-2015, he was a visiting professor at the Department of Innovative Pharmacy and Biotechnology at MIPT under a grant from the Russian government. Since 2015, Fokin has been a professor of chemistry at the University of Southern California.
— If we talk about the practical applications of your discoveries, which ones do you consider the most important and useful for humanity?
— Those that allow me to understand and treat the human body are the closest to me.
Click chemistry and our other research have opened up new possibilities in cancer diagnosis, in the creation of new drugs, in real-time visualization of living cells, in DNA sequencing, and in the design of new materials.
But all these have one thing in common: they help to study and control processes in living systems at the level of individual molecules.
— You have been developing molecules that can help defeat HIV. What results have been achieved and when will humanity be able to completely defeat AIDS?
— Our approach has always been chemical: we created compounds to block the key stages of HIV infection. For example, they prevent a virus from entering a cell. Some results have proved promising, and this work continues.
But it is important to say something else: HIV is not only a medical problem, it is also a unique model for studying the evolution of viruses. It changes quickly, adapts, and defeats the body's defenses. Understanding these mechanisms proved to be extremely useful in covid times, when the whole world was faced with another rapidly evolving virus.
Defeating HIV requires a combination of chemistry, medicine, biology, and community efforts. Science has already created a solid foundation, but the path to complete victory will be gradual. However, what we have learned while working with HIV has already helped and will continue to help in the fight against other viral threats.
— Your developments are also used in oncomedicine. Tell us more about them. What are the latest results in this area?
— It is also important to emphasize here: our reaction is just a tool, but extremely powerful. With its help, drugs are created that hit exactly the target — only on tumor cells, detect metastases in the early stages, and monitor how the drug behaves in the body.
The drug Trodelvy, which uses the CuAAC reaction (copper—catalyzed reactions), is a vivid example of how chemical tools are becoming part of real therapy. This is a special reason for me to be happy: to see that our laboratory ideas are turning into medicines that help patients.
"Committee decisions are always subjective, just like any human decisions"
— In 2022, click chemistry was awarded the attention of the Nobel Committee - the prize was awarded to Professor Caroline Bertozzi of Stanford University, Professor Morten Meldal of the University of Copenhagen and chemist Barry Sharpless of the Scripps Institution. Back then, many people said that, in fact, it was thanks to your work that this area became effective. How did you assess the committee's decision then?
— The 2022 Nobel Prize highlighted how important the field of click chemistry has become. Barry Sharpless proposed the term and concept — it was a beautiful idea: to make chemistry fast, clean and convenient, a kind of "molecular constructor". But in order for this concept to become a real field of science, a reaction was needed that actually worked as intended.
This reaction was CuAAC, which we purposefully developed in my laboratory. It was she who gave click chemistry the speed, selectivity and biocompatibility that made it possible for its widespread distribution and application in living systems, medicine and materials science. In fact, it was CuAAC that turned the concept into a practical tool used by thousands of researchers.
— How do you assess the role of this award in modern science in general?
— It was important to me that the international community paid attention to this area. As for the specific decisions of the committees, everyone looks at science in their own way. For me, the main criterion is that our discoveries and inventions really work and have become part of the daily practice of hundreds of university and industrial laboratories around the world.
In the long term, it is precisely such tools and ideas that determine the development of science, and awards capture only individual moments along the way. Committee decisions are always subjective, just like any human decisions, and this is a natural part of scientific life.
— According to a national initiative called the Genesis Mission, artificial intelligence will be used in the United States to plan experiments, accelerate model creation, and improve development efficiency. Our country is also doing a lot to introduce AI into science at all stages. What is the role of AI in scientific research and where can this tool lead science and, in particular, chemistry?
— AI is becoming a chemist's new tool: it accelerates the search for molecules, helps design experiments, and analyze complex processes. But AI is an amplifier, not a substitute.
Chemistry is done by humans: intuition, understanding of molecular logic, the ability to see unexpected connections. AI makes this process faster, but the scientist still directs it. AI cannot replace intuition yet.
— You work in the USA. How is the interaction between Russian and American scientists structured? Are you planning any joint work with Russian scientific organizations?
— For chemists and biologists on both sides of the ocean, the main question is the same: how life works at the molecular level. Scientific interest has always united people more strongly than any external circumstances.
Chemistry is a universal language that scientists in Moscow and Los Angeles understand equally well. And although the formal conditions for professional interaction are not easy now, science itself remains open: publications, data, methods — all this is available to the international community.
In this sense, the scientific dialogue continues.
— What other trends in the development of modern science do you see?
— Today it is impossible to overestimate the integration of chemistry, biology and medicine with artificial intelligence. Scientific boundaries are rapidly blurring, and it is at the junction of disciplines that new technologies are being born.
Understanding cellular processes at the level of individual molecules opens the way to diagnostic and treatment methods that seemed impossible until recently. This is changing not only approaches to medicine, but also our very understanding of living systems.
And at the center of all these changes remains chemistry, the language in which life is written.
In addition to Valery Fokin, four scientists from Russia received the National Prize in the field of future technologies "Challenge" in 2025. The Deputy General Director of the High-Tech Scientific Research Institute of Inorganic Materials named after Academician A.A. Bochvar (VNIINM, Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation) was awarded in the Engineering Solution nomination. Mikhail Skupov for the creation of technology for the industrial production of nitride nuclear fuel. Alexey Glushenkov (VNIINM, Rosatom State Corporation) became the sole winner of the award.
Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Stepan Kalmykov was awarded the prize in the "Scientist of the Year" nomination for the most important fundamental and applied research in the field of radiochemistry and radiochemical technologies. Ilya Yampolsky, Doctor of Chemical Sciences from the Shemyakin and Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was awarded the Breakthrough Prize for deciphering the molecular mechanisms of bioluminescence and creating luminous plants.
Vera Wil, a Doctor of Chemical Sciences from the Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was awarded the Perspective prize for developing methods for the formation of new chemical bonds involving electric current and organic peroxides.
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