Science fair projects such as researching for a cure for thrombocytopenia and creating waterborne bacteria in creek water using radiation led to first place finishes  at the District Science Fair on Feb.5.

Senior Monisha Veerapaneni, senior Katherine Xiu, junior I-Chun Lin, junior Ahneesh Mohanty and junior Emilie Wille all placed first at the District Science Fair. Next up is the Regional Science Fair on Saturday, Feb. 15.

In addition to advancing to regionals, many of the projects can be used to help solve problems in the future such as blood-diseases.

“The future application is that it can be used to create potential gene therapies to create a cure for thrombocytopenia, which is a major life-threatening clinical disease that causes a reduction in the number of thrombocytes present,” Veerapaneni said, who worked at a lab at UNT for her research on the hoxy level in genes and thrombocytopenia.

In addition, the groups of seniors Afshan Irani,  Ryan Shu and  Rahul Dhir; juniors Claire Goeckner-Wald and Vivianne Tu; and junior Ria Chhabra placed second.

Coming in at third place were the groups of juniors Sarina Wu, Alicia D’Souza and Jessica Hong; juniors Janani Ramachandran and  Jeremy Doan; junior Pranaav Sudheendra; and junior Prithvi Thavanampalli.

Senior Angela Zhang and the group of seniors Vincent Tran and Jai Ghanekar earned honorable mentions at the District Science Fair.