Below is an article from Bay News 9's multimedia journalist, Erin Murray.

TAMPA, Fla. — In the heart of summer, recent King High School graduate Daniel Park is back in a biology classroom. It is a place he feels very comfortable.

Perhaps it is because he is about to begin college at Brown University studying molecular biology, but it could also be because he just invented a new type of anxiety medication.

“It’s basically a new and better way to treat anxiety and depression disorders using a drug that comes from tarantula venom, actually,” said Park. “Basically, what I did is I took some more toxin, and I switched around some of those molecules in it to make it safer and more effective at crossing that barrier.”

The barrier being the protection around the brain that doesn’t easily let medication get to a person’s amygdala.

To create the medication, he never actually touched a spider.

Instead, he used open-sourced data released for free by universities and ran modifications to those compounds through a computation tool on his home laptop.

He said it took a week just to run the simulation, but he eventually found a successful combination.

“I remember I was really, really excited when I finally loaded up that shot of the video that rendered after the simulation, and everything was working, and all the results had been confirmed. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it worked out, this actually worked,’” said Park.

His idea was so well received that he started competing with his new invention. It is called “Psamacross: A Venom-Derived Anxiety Depression Medication.”

He most recently went to the RTX Invention Convention U.S. Nationals in Michigan where he was awarded the Patent Application award, sponsored by the law firm WilmerHale.

That firm is now assisting Park in getting his invention patented.

“And then after that, they also provide you those legal counseling services for free. So they can actually help defend your patent when eventually the USPTO (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office), as most times they come back and they reject your application,” said Park.

It is a strenuous three to five-year process to get a patent, but Park is determined to continue its pursuit.

If it does get an official patent, he has big plans.

“I really envision this drug becoming sort of just an everyday product that can be used by all these different patients, by all these different people suffering from these conditions,” said Park.

The RTX Invention Convention U.S. Nationals brought together the top K–12 student innovators from across the country.

Park was one of two Hillsborough County students to receive honors on the national level.