By Michèle De Meglio
Sweden, here he comes! Coney Island resident Michael Vishnevetsky is ready to pack his suitcase for an all-expenses paid trip to Stockholm. The trip is the Midwood High School student’s prize for being one of three winners of the Nobel Prize Essay Contest. In December, Vishnevetsky and fellow winners Alina Fradlis of Staten Island and Jedtsada Laucharoen of the Bronx will travel overseas to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony and celebratory festivities. “I’m really excited,” Vishnevetsky, 16, said. “I can’t wait to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony and the banquet. I get to meet all the winners if they come. It’s going to be amazing.” Open to juniors enrolled at public, private and parochial schools, the contest – which is administered by the New York Academy of Sciences, the city Department of Education and the City University of New York in collaboration with the Consulate General of Sweden in New York and www.nobelprize.org, the official website of the Nobel Foundation – required students to write an essay about a Nobel laureate who made accomplishments in the fields of physics, chemistry or physiology and medicine. The three winners were selected after undergoing interviews and presenting their papers to a panel of scientific luminaries and journalists. Vishnevetsky wrote about the work of Günter Blobel, who won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1999. “He discovered the process of how proteins are synthesized within a cell and how they get to their cellular locations,” the teen explained. “He found that proteins have proteins attached to them, which are called signal peptides…It’s very big for the diagnosis of diseases and to basically discover how diseases work.” Vishnevetsky’s parents have helped foster the teen’s love of science. “They’ve been a really big part of it. My mom is a pharmacist. I’ve always looked up to her for working so hard. I’ve always been interested in what she’s been doing and she’s always been happy to help me with any questions I’ve had in science. My parents are a really big part of my education,” he said. Even his grandfather has gotten in on the act. “My grandpa drives me to my lab [at SUNY Downstate Medical Center] and back every day. When I have to stay pretty late, he drives there and takes me home,” he said. With such a strong interest in the scientific field, Vishnevetsky plans to become a doctor. He has also been intrigued by forms of science unrelated to medicine. “Recently I’ve become interested in physics and astrophysics. I am going to look into that in college,” he said. Although he spends much of his time involved in scientific pursuits, Vishnevetsky enjoys typical teenage activities. “I like playing sports. I play baseball and wrestling – I was on both teams in my school last year. I also like reading. I like reading popular science novels. They’re nonfiction things like “Chaos Theory Tamed” [by Garnett P. Williams.] Things like that and astrophysics stuff,” he said. His interests at school have also expanded. “Before this year, I never really liked history too much. But this year I liked it a lot more after taking an [advanced placement] class in my school,” he said. “I started to follow the stock market. I try to do a lot of things.” In spite of his accomplishments, Vishnevetsky remains humble about how far he’s come. “I didn’t expect to win,” he said of the contest. “There are a lot of really good students and great essays. I’m sure all of them were good and it was hard to choose three of them to be the best. I was really happy to be a finalist and to get to this level is really great.”
