First-place 2014 Maine State Science Fair winner Demetri Maxim, the great-grandson of ARRL co-founder Hiram Percy Maxim, W1AW, apparently inherited some of the Maxim line’s inventive genius. Demetri Maxim, 16, lives in Carlisle, Massachusetts, and attends Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine.

His prize-winning invention, which he has submitted for a patent, is aimed at developing a simple, non-invasive test to help kidney transplant patients, such as his own mother, Lefki Michael-Maxim, who must undergo repeated testing to determine if she is rejecting the transplanted organ. His invention “tests the level of protein in a patient’s blood by inducing a reaction between the blood and other chemicals in a tiny test tube,” the Bangor Daily News reported March 24 in a story by Nell Gluckman. The color resulting from the reaction indicates possible rejection.

Demetri was one of 150 students taking part in the science fair March 22, sponsored by Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, and judged by scientists from the world-famous genetic research facility. Demetri’s great-great grandfather — HPM’s father — was famous in his own right. Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, born in Sangerville, Maine, invented Maxim machine gun. HPM, among other things, invented the Maxim silencer as well as a muffler for gasoline engines.