Shireen rides horses, plays tennis, swims, plays basketball, and paints. Because Shireen has "always wanted to help those in pain," she'd like to pursue a career in biomedical research or dentistry.
Shireen read about a sweetener called stevia, which is 300 times sweeter than sugar but safe for people with diabetes. Stevia is difficult to propagate and hence hard to grow on a commercial scale. Shireen wanted to explore large-scale propagation methods for stevia.
Last year, Shireen successfully cultured cuttings using various solutions of growth factors. Her goal for this year's project was to develop a method of tissue culturing that would produce somatic embryos that could be encapsulated in Gelrite to produce artificial seeds. Shireen found that the growth factor TDZ produced the highest amount of new growth (24 new shoots per cutting) and that glucose produced more shoots than sucrose. She was successful in making the artificial seeds and is now interested in exploring whether the stevia "seeds" can be stored and transported for future planting.
