15-year-old teenager invented soap from skin cancer

He won a large grant for his research, and Time recognized him as a "child of the year"

A few years ago, the American teenager Heman Bekele came up with a soap that could help people in the early stages of skin cancer. Now he is 15 years old: he won a grant of 25 thousand dollars, found a curator, conducts research on mice and wants to make his invention accessible to everyone. Time magazine called him a "child of the year." "Cold" retells its story.

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"All this was mixed at random"

Heman Bekele moved to the USA from Ethiopia when he was four years old. One of his earliest memories was meetings with workers who worked under the scorching sun, without using any means to protect their skin. From early childhood, the parents of Heman taught him and sisters to hide from the sun, explaining what is fraught with too long in the open air without sunscreen or clothing without UV protection.

“When I was very small, I did not think about it, but, having arrived in America, I realized how large -scale problem is sunny ultraviolet radiation,” says Heman.

Then he began to conduct his first scientific experiments: he mixed everything that came by his arm, and waited for if the resulting slurry would turn into something worthwhile.

“It was a dishwasher, washing powder and other ordinary household chemicals. I hid them under the bed and looked what would happen if you leave them overnight. All this was mixed completely at random, ”said Heman.

At Christmas before Heman's seven years, his parents gave him a children's chemical set, and from that moment his experiments became less accidental. When Hemann was a little over seven years, he prepared his most dangerous “potion”. In the set presented to him there was a sample sodium hydroxide. Heman has already studied chemical reactions on the Internet and therefore knew that if you mix it with aluminum, a large amount of heat would be released.

“I thought this could be a solution for an unlimited supply of energy, but I almost made a fire,” Heman recalls. After this incident, parents began to carefully monitor the experiments of their son.

"Continue to invent"

In October last year, Heman, being a student of grade 10, won the competition of young scientists. He received 25 thousand dollars for the idea of ​​soap, with the help of which in the future, as expected, it will be possible to prevent and even treat various forms of skin cancer.

This summer, the teenager worked on his invention in the laboratory at the Bloomberg Public Health School at Jones Hopkins University in Baltimore and will continue to conduct research in the future, when study will begin.

“I am very passionate about skin cancer. To think that someday my soap can influence someone's life is simply incredible, ”he says.

The idea to create a soap that helps with skin cancer came to Heman, a few years ago. He read about the drug Imichimod, which is usually produced in the form of a cream and is used for the most common form of skin cancer - basal cell carcinoma , and also demonstrates promising results in the treatment of other types of skin cancer.

Then Heman wondered whether it was possible to make him more affordable for people at the earliest stages of the disease. He decided that soap with this drug could be the best option. But it was not easy to realize this idea - it is not enough just to mix the cream with soap, since all the beneficial properties that Imihimod possesses would simply be washed off in the sewer with foam. But the way out was found: Heman decided that it was necessary to connect soap to lipid nanoparticles that will remain on the skin and after washing, as, for example, moisturizing components or fragrance remain. But alone, the teenager could not cope with this.

In 2023, he sent a video with a description of his idea for the competition of an industrial company 3M. Soon he was invited to the headquarters of the company in the city of St. Paul in Minnesota to make a report in front of the jury members. On the same day, he was declared the winner of the competition of young scientists. A prize of $ 25 thousand allowed him to continue research. Later, at the event in Washington, organized by a melanoma research alliance, Heman got acquainted with the molecular biologist, assistant professor at Jones Hopkins University in Baltimore, Vito Rebecca, who invited the teenager to his laboratory.

“I remember how I read somewhere about a young guy who had an idea to create a soap to combat skin cancer. It immediately interested me, I thought: how great it is that he wants to make him accessible to the whole world, ”he said Time.

So Rebecca began to oversee the work of Heman, acting as the chief researcher. They have been conducting studies on mice for almost six months, introducing animal skin cells and experiencing soap with lipid nanoparticles and imkhimod on them.

“Many people think that everything in the world has already been created. Everyone who thinks so, [I would say] that ideas will never end. Just continue to invent. Invent new ways to make the world better, ”says Heman.