When Jericho High School senior Jeremy Price was researching the link between periodontitis and coronary artery disease, he had no idea how far it would take him.

"It has been hypothesized that there is a link between gum disease and heart disease," said Price, who worked with Dr. Lorne Golub from Stony Brook University while doing his research but had experience in cell culture from the previous summer through his studies at the University of Iowa.

Price prepared his research for many science competitions, including Intel, of which he was a semi-finalist, and also prepared an abstract and sent it into the International Association of Dental Researchers, which held its 82nd General Session and Exhibition March 10-13, at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. People from over 30 countries attended the convention.

Price and Dr. Golub were selected to make an oral presentation and Dr. Gould sent Price to make the presentation to approximately 250 audience members, comprised of specialists in Price's specific area of research.

"I was a little nervous at first because I was presenting to people who are ten times smarter than I am and who have spent as many years in school as I have years in my life," said Price. "I was very happy with my presentation. Everything went more than perfect because I never would have imagined that these people would speak to me as a colleague of theirs."

After the presentation, Price fielded a few questions. "I felt elated after I was done," he said. "I had researchers from so many different places coming up to me telling me that they loved my research. All of the references that I cited in my paper were in the audience. I got to meet all of these people who my research was based on and all of these people at the cutting edge of science."

Price, who was recently named co-valedictorian of Jericho High School's class of 2004, said he was very interested in this research. "There are effective treatments out there right now for gum disease so who says that if we were to administer these to people who are at risk for heart disease that we can lower numbers of people getting heart disease," he said.

Price will be attending the University of Pennsylvania in the fall.