By Haleigh Miller, ’12, News Editor
Sebastian Koochaki, ’10, has excelled in chemistry both independently and collaboratively on a local and a national scale. Koochaki placed in the top 50 high school students in the nation on the 2009 National Chemistry Olympiad Exam last spring. He also spent the past summer working in a lab with the director of graduate studies of the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Cincinnati. It was his second summer working in a UC professor’s lab.
Koochaki was the only person from Cincinnati to earn a high honors distinction for the Chemistry Olympiad contest by placing in the top 50 students, and was one of only two in Ohio. The Chemistry Olympiad is a “multi-tiered competition designed to stimulate and promote achievement in high school chemistry,” according to the American Chemical Society. Around 10,000 students took the Local Chemistry Olympiad Exam, of which only the top 900 scorers sat for the 4.5 hour, three-part National Chemistry Olympiad Exam. The four highest scorers on that exam represent the U.S.A. at the 2009 International Chemistry Olympiad competition. Koochaki is one of only two students in CCDS history to achieve such a high score on the exams, which some AP Chemistry students take every year.
To pursue his passion for chemistry, over the summer Koochaki worked with Dr. Christy Holland, director of graduate studies in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UC. Together, Koochaki and Dr. Holland tried to engineer a new method for treating stroke patients. They explored using ultrasound to treat strokes. “There’s only one FDA approved drug to treat [them] … which breaks up the blood clots. We worked on putting the drug in something like a cell membrane, so it could be injected into the blood. Then, the ultrasound would break the membrane and release the drug into the bloodstream, and break up the clot. I was working on building the membrane to hold the drug,” Koochaki said of his chemistry mission.
The implications of this drug are quite significant. While there still would only be one FDA approved drug to treat strokes, the ultrasound method would provide an entirely new method for treatment, which, for many people, could be the difference between permanent speech and movement impediment or full recovery.
Upper School chemistry teacher Paula Butler introduced Koochaki to Dr. Holland, a friend of hers from college. It was Koochaki’s second summer working in a UC laboratory; Mrs. Butler helped arrange the first summer’s work as well.
“It is highly unusual for a high school sophomore to be invited to join a university lab,” Mrs. Butler said. “Sebastian earned rave reviews from his professor, who said that his depth of knowledge and the quality of his end-of-summer presentation rivaled senior college graduates.” This high praise from two summers ago helped Koochaki win the post with Dr. Holland this past summer.
Koochaki finds chemistry fascinating and “a really important part to… understanding human life.” In fact, Koochaki plans to pursue a career in chemistry, but he does not know where it will take him.
Mrs. Butler sees a bright future for him. “Sebastian has remarkable talent,” she said, “but equally important, he commits himself to his goals, working hard at learning as much as he can about topics that are interesting and challenging. I think he is well on his way to a future career in medical research, if that is what he decides to pursue.”
Header photo by Ilana Habib.