Photos by Karen Quincy Loberg / Star staff Sidney Primas, left, a volunteer at Westminster Free clinic in Thousand Oaks, speaks with patient Salvador Marin last month. The Westlake High grad plans to study bioengineering at Duke University in Durham, N.C.

A Thousand Oaks teen has been inspired by his father's battle with a brain disorder to pursue a career combining his passion for business with a desire to help those with impaired brain function.

"My dream is to open my own company and market something related to brain-computer interfaces," said Sidney Primas, 19.

In 2001, Sidney's father, Bob Primas, a mechanical engineer who works for Rocketdyne, suffered a seizure. Doctors discovered he was suffering from arteriovenous malformation, a condition he was born with that had gone unnoticed.

The condition involves a kind of brain short-circuit in which arteries and veins are entangled, causing the blood from arteries to flow into veins without giving nutrients to the brain tissue.

"What I have is close to the speech location," said Bob Primas, 50. "The pressure the veins put on the brain somehow makes me laugh or sometimes it makes me say things out of the blue."

In fall 2007, he underwent an eight-hour, open-skull surgery that removed most of the malformation but not all. He faces another surgery this fall.

"I never really wanted to do anything in engineering or anything in neuroscience," said Sidney Primas. "I always really wanted to do business, but since my dad got his diagnosis, I got more and more interested in it, so now I want to do a business with neuroscience."

Brain-computer interfaces, he said, attach microchips to neurons in the brain. When the neurons fire, the impulses are communicated to a computer or robotic limb.

"They have now this new thing where you can sit in a chair and look at a screen, and just through your thoughts you can move the mouse on the screen," he said. "It's easy to think of moving an arm, but whoever thought that your brain could move a mouse on a screen? It's not supposed to do that, but the brain adjusts itself to that chip and allows you to move that mouse."

He said this type of innovation can be used to help paralyzed people communicate through computers or use robotic limbs.

Sidney Primas and younger brother Joshua were born in Woodland Hills but spent much of their early years in Switzerland after Bob and wife Karina Primas returned to their home city of Zurich. The family came back to California 10 years ago and settled in Thousand Oaks.

At Westlake High School, Sidney Primas pioneered a Junior Achievement program that gives students the opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship and get real-life business experience.

He has also volunteered for the past three years at the Westminster Free Clinic in Thousand Oaks, where he helps supervise a team of 35 volunteers who help provide primary-care services to the uninsured homeless and working poor.

"At Westlake High School, the parking lot is BMWs, Hummers, etc., so definitely the Free Clinic brings you into a whole different world," he said.

Primas, who graduated this year from Westlake High as valedictorian, learned in May that he earned the Walt Disney Co. Foundation Scholarship for 2008. The scholarship is awarded to one Junior Achievement student from thousands of applications across the nation. The scholarship will pay for the full four-year undergraduate tuition at the university of his choice.

"This is a very significant achievement," said Amanda Sattler, vice president of education for Junior Achievement in Southern California. "Sid has an amazing entrepreneurial spirit. He is highly intelligent, but he also has a heart for giving back."

Primas will study bioengineering, with an emphasis on neuroscience, at Duke University in Durham, N.C.

"If you go to Duke, you're looking at spending $200,000 over four years, and you know, I am not that rich, so you make decisions based on what you can afford," said Bob Primas. "So now I am very proud but also very happy, because he can make choices that fit what he likes."

Sidney Primas' academic achievements, leadership skills and community involvement have also won him other scholarships, including a $2,000 one from Ronald McDonald House Charities of Southern California.