Out of the 1,600 applicants for the Siemens Competition for Math, Science and Technology competition, senior William Hu recently learned he is one of the 96 finalists.

For six and a half weeks this past summer at Stony Brook University in New York, Hu, along with two other students from Wisconsin and New York, investigated dental pulp stem cells, which are stem cells derived from the soft tissues in teeth.

His team used polylactic acid and polystyrene and spin casted them onto silicon wafers to create different topographical surfaces that replicate different teeth. Then, they placed the dental pulp stem cells onto those different surfaces to analyze how each of the stem cells respond. The goal of this project is to understand more about the intricacies of these cells.

His team will present to a panel of judges on Nov. 12. If they are the best project within the groups shown to the panel, they will move onto the National Competition at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., on Dec 2.

Hu was thrilled to have reached this level for a project he is passionate about.

“I hope to possibly continue this research in college,” Hu said. “I want to study more broad cell response and different types of cells to expand on this project even more.”