Václav Verner

The new Neuron Rising Star award went for 2025, in its first year, to the extraordinarily gifted student Václav Verner — for his remarkable talent and for winning "precious metals", gold and silver, at the International Chemistry Olympiad. It was the best Czech placing in history.

A golden and silver wind

In past years the gifted Václav Verner has brought home gold and silver medals from several international student olympiads — among all those triumphs, three golds at the International Chemistry Olympiad (where he finished second overall) and outright victory at the European Olympiad of Experimental Science deserve a mention. Is it like a sporting contest? "There certainly is a parallel with sport. Everything is preceded by long-term training, but then you have to give your maximum on the spot, in a short knowledge test or a presentation. It is enormous stress. Behind a single moment there is a great deal of preparation," Vašek says. In the spring of 2025 he passed his school-leaving exams at the PORG Libeň grammar school in Prague, and in September he went straight into the second year of chemistry at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague.

At the IOCB while still at grammar school

Even before his school-leaving exams he had a publication to his name in the prestigious journal Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, and he works in Professor Jan Konvalinka's laboratory at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences, which he had been attending while still at grammar school. Vašek then received the Czech Brainy Head award for his part in research into the treatment of cryptococcosis.

Václav Verner demonstrates his exceptional talent again and again, in physics and mathematics among other things. Chemistry is clearly in the lead, though, and it is in chemistry that Václav, as a Neuron Rising Star, sees his scientific future: "It will definitely be chemistry. And most likely medicinal chemistry. I enjoy the connection between organic chemistry and real-world use, which is what biochemistry gives me. I definitely want to carry on in science — not only because I enjoy it, but because I feel that one day I can help someone with it."