Teenage scientist Heman Bekele's ultimate goal is to cure melanoma. After winning 3M's Young Scientist Challenge by inventing soap that can cure skin cancer, he caught the attention of the University of Virginia's cancer center.

Charlottesville

Sixteen-year-old Heman Bekele has developed a soap intended to treat skin cancer, motivated by his desire to make cancer treatment more affordable and accessible. Bekele's invention, called Skin Cancer Treating Soap (SCTS), uses a drug known for treating skin cancer, imidazoquinoline, embedded in a bar of soap with nanoparticles to help the drug adhere to the skin.

Bekele's work has garnered significant recognition, including winning the 3M Young Scientist Challenge and being featured on the cover of Time Magazine. His project has received mentorship from cancer researchers at the University of Virginia and testing support from Johns Hopkins. While the soap is still in the experimental phase, Bekele's innovation highlights the potential for young scientists to contribute to medical research.

Teenager wants to cure skin cancer with soap

If ever there was a believer in the awesome power of human potential, Haman Bekele strikes the note. A 16-year-old pianist with a head for science, intent on altering our treatment for skin cancer. I mean to me it just sounded like the solution was really simple. There is skin cancer treatment available to so many people that can afford it, and there are people that need it that can't afford it, so why not make it more affordable? Introducing Skin Cancer Treating Soap, or SCTS for short. At 14, he took the science community by storm. Haman Bekele. Winning 3M's Young Scientist Challenge. That landed him on the cover of Time Magazine as Kid of the Year. Sometimes you just have to do a cold call, get on the internet and email somebody. That's how at age 13, Haman caught the attention of microbiologist Dr. J. William Fox, Associate Director at the University of Virginia's Comprehensive Cancer Center. And a mentorship was born. He wanted to cure cancer with soap. And you go, well, okay, you know, we have to be open to all things. That's what science is about, right? And so I said, let's talk about it. And I said, why? Why would you even want to do that? Coming to America at age four, Haman was inspired by the hardships he recalled as a young child in Ethiopia. There are so many people that, without knowing about the inherent risk of long hours under UV radiation, still work really long hours under the hot sun. And so now I really do look back at those memories and feel even more motivated to continue to work on something affordable and accessible for skin cancer treatment. You credit the school system a lot. Mom, Mulu Mebet Bekele, joined him for our interview. He is very empathetic and he has a good heart. He sees a problem and he always thinks of, how can I make this better? You know, I never thought he would make this medical breakthrough, but I knew he would get somewhere. How do you foster creativity? I mean, what was he showing you at five and six that you realized he's advanced? Yeah. So asking multiple questions. Like what? Like what happens when, if I mix a rotten milk to some other like mulch, you know? Things like that. Always being curious and wanting to know what would happen if he mixes things up. That's like that curiosity. You have to foster as a parent, you know, never discouraged what he did. Did you have the answer? I did not. It's not like answering his question. It's like either guiding him to where he has to go ask and encouraging him to ask his teachers questions. After winning that $25,000 prize money from 3M, he partnered with Rebecca Lab, a cancer research arm of Johns Hopkins, to test his hypothesis. So this is what? Lab? This is our science lab at our school. Carter G. Woodson High School in Fairfax, Virginia, where he took us through the trial and error of his method, beginning first with liquid soap. We'll put some soap into here. Okay. You'll see that the soap didn't really mix in. Half of it dissolved. Half of it stayed right on the top. That fail led him to a good old-fashioned alternative, bar soap. The way that it started originally was two ingredients. It was a drug, and it was a transport. So the drug, it's a mouthful, but it's called imidazoquinoline. Imidazoquinoline. Imidazoquinoline, yeah. Imidazoquinoline. You got it. And it's this drug that's been used in the past to treat different forms of skin cancer. I think the novelty of the bar of soap is really more in the fact that it's in a bar of soap. And that it doesn't degrade in the bar of soap. Exactly. And so how they kind of synergize is the drug is in the middle, and then the nanoparticle wraps around that drug. And then when it's on a bar of soap, you put on your skin, and the water will wash away the soaps and the suds. But you remember, the drug treats the cancer, and the nanoparticle will keep it stuck on the skin at a very molecular level. Heyman's discovery comes at a time when the scientific community is under the microscope, fending off cuts to both research and programs nurturing the next generation of young talent. Science requires you actually have a hypothesis, and you have to prove it. And that's research. And that requires funding and support. We recognize that without this pipeline of young people getting to experience this, science won't go anywhere. It's the young people that do it. For now, Heyman isn't discouraged, and neither is his biggest advocate. I am proud of not only the invention, the innovation that he made. I'm proud of his persistence, his character. I'm just proud of, you know, the person who has become, you know. What's your advice to other young people out there who have your curiosity, your strength to follow through? I would say to dream big. I mean, ambition is what took me here, even when it didn't really seem like it was possible. I would say to anybody who has an idea or a figment of an idea, just go full on it. I promise you, it will be worth it. So just continue working hard.

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