Wesley Sundquist ’81 named to TIME 100 Most Influential People of 2025
Sundquist studied chemistry at Carleton.
Wesley Sundquist ’81 has been named as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025, along with virologist Tomáš Cihlář, for their research leading to a highly effective drug that prevents HIV infections.
Photo credit: David Titensor/University of Utah Health
Today, antiviral medications can turn HIV, a once fatal infection, into a chronic condition. Nonetheless, the cocktail of pills remains out of reach for many—and lapses in the daily regimen make them less effective. Wesley Sundquist, a biochemist at University of Utah, and Tomáš Cihlář, a virologist at Gilead, a biopharmaceutical company, have labored for more than a dozen years to turn one antiviral treatment, lenacapavir, into a twice-a-year therapy to prevent HIV infection in those at high risk. Sundquist laid the groundwork in studying one of HIV’s proteins, the capsid, which creates a protective shell around the virus’ genome; Cihlář visited his labs and was impressed enough to take his discoveries to Gilead. There, his team found ways to extend the effect of the drug over six months, meaning infected patients only receive two injections a year to treat HIV. Researchers are now studying lenacapavir in people who are not HIV positive but are at high risk of exposure. If approved, it would be the first twice-a-year injected drug to prevent HIV. Early results show great promise.
University of Utah Health, where Sundquist is Samuels Professor and Co-Chair of the Department of Biochemistry, published coverage of this honor with more background on Sundquist’s work.
The story of lenacapavir started decades ago with basic, curiosity-driven research in Sundquist’s lab. The lab wasn’t specifically aiming to discover new therapies—rather, they were simply trying to understand how the HIV virus particle is put together. They discovered that one of the key components of the virus is extremely sensitive to change: a prime target for drug development.
Sundquist’s accomplishment is a testament to the critical role of basic science in forming the foundation of discoveries that save lives.
“We view ourselves as, first of all, trying to understand the natural world, which I think has great intrinsic value,” Sundquist says. “But we also view ourselves as sort of the feedstock for new ways of approaching medicine.”