The 20 teenage faces that will be flashed today on the JumboTron at Times Square won't be familiar to any of the passing tourists or New Yorkers.

They're not athletes or entertainers, but they're already considered high school science superstars by the nation's top universities for discoveries that could lead to breakthrough cures of deadly diseases.

Three Wake County students will try this weekend to stand out from this elite group of students by winning one of the nation's top high school science competitions.

"We know we're ready," said Vivek Bhattacharya, 16, the leader of the team from Enloe High School in Raleigh. "We also know there are a lot of amazing projects. We'll see how it works out."

Bhattacharya, Hao Lian and Daniel Vitek form one of six teams that are now in New York City for the national finals of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. On Monday, they'll find out if they will share the top prize of a $100,000 scholarship.

But just making it to the national finals means they're sought after by universities nationwide. Universities routinely cite how many Siemens regional finalists and national finalists are in their freshmen classes.

First-place winners have gone to universities such as Harvard, Princeton and Stanford

"They're going to have plenty of offers," said Donald Bitzer, one of their project mentors and a computer science professor at N.C. State University.

Bitzer, who was a co-inventor of the flat-panel plasma screen in 1964, has already made his pitch to the students. He told them that they could get an education at N.C. State that challenges them to their fullest abilities.

But Vivek and Hao, the seniors on the team, have their eyes set on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago and UNC-Chapel Hill. As soon as they got the word they were finalists, they quickly sent e-mail messages to those schools to notify them of their new status.

It's the first time students from a North Carolina school other than the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics have made it to the national finals since Siemens began sponsoring the competition in 1999.

The three from Enloe High made it to New York by winning a regional final this month in Atlanta. They will share a $6,000 scholarship for that win. By making it to the national finals, they are guaranteed at least a shared $10,000 scholarship.

They made it further than most of the 1,641 national entries by developing a computer model that can help scientists determine which gene sequences to use to produce specific proteins. The research could provide a cost-effective method of commercially producing useful proteins such as insulin.

Vivek said the practical applications are what drew them in. It's also what attracted King Jordan, one of the judges at the regional finals. He said it was "a fresh, new way of research."

"The team's competency was impressive," said Jordan, an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Biology. "The model is more sophisticated than others, and the project has real practical applications in fields such as synthetic biology."

The students face a tough field in New York. Other finalists in the team category have completed projects that can lead to more effective treatment of brain tumors and the development of the next generation of anti-tuberculosis drugs.

Bitzer helped make it possible for the Enloe students. Until he stepped up, their requests for help were rejected by dozens of professors.

After meeting with the students, Bitzer supplied them with a research problem to study and agreed to be a mentor. Anne-Marie Stomp, an associate professor of forestry at N.C. State, is their other project mentor.

Bitzer said the students' work is so good that he treats them like graduate students.

"These kids are making contributions that are solving problems," Bitzer said.

It's also been rewarding for the students. They regularly meet after school at NCSU to do computer and lab work.

"This is our chance to see what real research is like that you can't do in a high school," Daniel, 16, said.

But they also pay a steep price for these rewards. All three juggle heavy workloads full of honors-level and advanced placement courses. The academic competition is intense at Enloe, a magnet school that draws top high school students from around Wake County.

"We often give up sleep," Vivek said. "There are a lot of sacrifices we need to make for the project."

Today, though, they'll be able to relax before the competition formally begins this weekend. They'll hang out at Dave & Buster's, a restaurant with its own video arcade; bowl at Chelsea Piers; and take a peek at their faces on the JumboTron as crowds throng Times Square.

"They'll wonder who we are," Hao, 17, said.