High school junior Logan Ramanathan’s favorite subject isn’t biology, and the Los Altos Hills resident said he has no interest in becoming a doctor.
And yet, with an idea to create artificial organs to save lives, Ramanathan was recently named one of 10 winners of the 2023 Student STEM Writing Contest held by The New York Times.
Encouraged by his older sister, this year was the first time The Nueva School student entered the annual contest that began four years ago.
“She saw it on the (newspaper’s) website, and it was only 500 words,” Ramanathan said of the word limit for entries. “So, I was like, ‘Why not?’”
His essay, titled “3-D Bioprinting: A Modern Day Prometheus,” details the lack of organ donors across the world. In it, Ramanathan proposes creating artificial organs with 3-D bioprinting to help those who need transplants.
Ramanathan said he was inspired by the Greek mythological story of Prometheus, a titan who stole the power of the gods and gave it to humans in the forms of technology, knowledge and civilization.
“‘A Modern Prometheus’ is the original title for a lot of things,” he said. “It was an interesting version, based on the idea of creating life without gods.”
Despite showing a depth of knowledge about biology in his essay, Ramanathan said he plans to pursue engineering due to his passion for mechanics and physics. He explained that the experience of writing the article helped him gain a diverse understanding of other STEM subjects.
“I think the (bioprinting) technology is really cool, and there’s a lot of things for me to do in that area,” he said. “And my interests related to engineering can (also) go into that.”
While Ramanathan was pleased with the results of the essay contest, he said the recognition was unexpected.
“I thought there (would be) a good amount of people who will recommend this as an honorable mention or things like that,” he said. “So, there was a chance to be recognized in some way. But I didn’t expect to be a winner at all.”
Although he may not be pursuing the specific area of his article as a career, Ramanathan still hopes the technology will become more accessible for others.
“I think that it’s really impactful technology because it turns out that there are a lot of people who are on organ donor waitlists,” he said. “So, if we were able to improve the technology to be able to create other organs other than what’s currently available without that, (then that) could be huge – and that would save a lot of lives.”
To read Ramanathan’s essay on The New York Times website, visit tinyurl.com/bde6xjws.
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