A Nashville middle-schooler is in Washington, DC this week, competing as a finalist in the Discovery Channel’s Young Scientist Challenge.

Shalom Rottman-Yang is an 8th grader at Meigs Magnet Middle School. He’s one of just forty 5th through 8th graders from around the nation to make it to the final round. He says the inspiration for his entry came from a routine lesson last year.

“We were learning about the parts of the cell in class and I was pretty interested in mitochondria so I thought I would do something about that, and I did.”

What he did went well beyond the usual middle school science project. Thanks to his mother, Yang had access to the labs at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. There he grew heart cells, used electrical charges to make the cells pump at a fast rate, and measured the number of mitochondria in the cells. Yang concluded that exercise increases the number of energy-producing mitochondria in the heart-good news for those with heart disease.

Yang says the competition goes beyond simply setting up a display of his work. He had to give a speech to a panel of judges, and participate in a series of challenges with other finalists.

“They wanna see how well we can communicate science and work together as a group, and they judge us while we’re doing these challenges, and it’s pretty cool.”

The winner will be announced later today. Regardless of the outcome, Yang says the best part is meeting the other kids.