Shireen Dhir read about a natural sweetener called stevia, which is 300 times as sweet as sugar but safe for people with diabetes. Stevia is extracted from a plant that is hard to propagate. Because of this, it's difficult to grow large quantities of the herb for commercial sale. Shireen wanted to explore large-scale propagation methods for stevia. She decided to try cloning.

In 2005, Shireen, who is 14 years of age, successfully cultured stevia cuttings using various solutions of growth factors. Her goal was to develop a method of tissue culturing that would produce somatic plant embryos. She would place these embryos in a growing medium and try to produce artificial seeds. Shireen found that the growth factor TDZ produced the highest amount of new growth (24 new shoots per cutting). She also discovered that glucose solution produced more shoots than sucrose did.

Shireen was successful in making the artificial stevia seeds. Her next goal is to determine whether these seeds can be stored and transported for planting. Because of her discovery, Shireen was also declared a finalist in Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge, 2005.

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