15.09.2026 From September 11 to 17 in Yekaterinburg, the International Festival of the Youth is taking place, bringing together 10,000 young leaders from 191 countries. The program of the large-scale event includes interactive exhibitions, meetings with scientists, entrepreneurs and cultural figures, as well as discussions on how to change the world for the better.
Experts of the Vyzov Foundation also presented their research and scientific achievements. On September 14, Vera Vil', Head of the Laboratory of Chemistry of Industrially Useful Products at the N.D. Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a VYZOV Prize laureate, gave the lecture “Niche Chemistry: How Substances with a Bad Reputation Provide Us with a Wonderful Future”. She spoke about organic peroxides – a little-known class of compounds that rarely gets covered even in university organic chemistry courses. Yet these compounds are part of everyday life: they are used in crop protection, production of polymers and medicines.
Vera Vil'
On the same day, the lecture “Quantum Computer as a Startup: Wh ere Science Turns into Engineering” was delivered by Ilya Semerikov, Head of the Laboratory of the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a VYZOV Prize laureate. The scientist spoke about the stages of building quantum computers and the prospects for their use. It is expected that in the future such devices will be able to solve complex computational problems, includiong developing new drugs or optimizing city traffic.
Ilya Semerikov
Innovation in medicine was addressed by Denis Logunov, Director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology and a member of the VYZOV Prize Scientific Committee. On September 15, in the lecture “Science Against Disease: New Possibilities of Modern Medicine”, he explained how modern vaccines work and how they help the immune system recognize diseases and protect the body. The scientist also focused on mRNA technologies, which make it possible to create personalized vaccines that take into account the genetic and other individual characteristics of a particular patient. Today such drugs can be used to treat cancer.
Denis Logunov
The meetings with scientists were held with the support of the Russian Society Znanie and the Presidential Grants Foundation.
