An Upper Arlington High School senior was one of the winners at the TechColumbus annual Innovation Awards, held Feb. 3 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

Ameya Deshmukh was one of two winners of a $2,500 High School Innovation Award/Scholarship. The other was Kevin Wolf of New Albany High School. They were selected by independent judges.

"The Innovation Awards has become the premier event for the central Ohio tech community, showcasing the best and brightest individuals, companies and technology teams for their contributions and achievements in innovation," said Ted Ford, president and CEO of TechColumbus, in a statement. TechColumbus is a nonprofit organization that focuses on technology-based economic development in the 15 counties of central Ohio.

Deshmukh said that to win the award, he wrote an essay "regarding how innovation fits into your life and how you see yourself using innovation in your future."

Since the seventh grade, Deshmukh has conducted research at Ohio State University. For the past three years, he has worked in the pharmacology research lab of Professor Dennis McKay. For his OSU work, he gets a half credit applied to his high school general science credit.

"When I first spoke to Professor McKay, he asked me to be able to make a long-term commitment," Deshmukh said. "He asked me to become part of their lab group, and I basically go about three days a week to campus. I unfortunately don't drive, so I take the bus to campus and I spend about 2-3 hours there carrying out my research."

Deshmukh said he's fortunate that OSU is in his back yard, because some of his science fair friends from out of town have to drive an hour to and from the lab.

While at OSU, Deshmukh works with undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students on designing drugs to combat nicotine addiction that work differently than current products on the market, he said.

"The drug that I'm attempting to discover is interacting with these (nicotinic) receptors in a slightly different way in that it targets a separate site on that receptor, and is able to essentially shut it down and stop the production of dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that essentially leads to the high that the person experiences when they use any nicotine-based product."

Deshmukh has presented his research at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and has an invitation to present his work at the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

He's not sure if he'll attend Ohio State, but Deshmukh said he'll probably pursue a dual major in the biological sciences and chemistry. He'd like to go into biomedical engineering and commercialize his research.

"That's kind of the premise of the Innovation Awards," Deshmukh said. "They are basically looking for people who have done research and are able to apply that and make those products and services available to the common man."

For more information, visit www.techcolumbus.org.