A 15-year-old boy who created a soap that could “transform skin cancer treatment” has been chosen as the 2024 Kid of the Year by Time magazine and Time for Kids. Heman Bekele from Virginia, US, is a teen scientist “who could change how we treat skin cancer,” the outlet stated in its announcement released Thursday. He was chosen after he created a soap that could be a “more accessible way to deliver medication to treat skin cancers, including melanoma,” the magazine said. 

“It’s absolutely incredible to think that one day my bar of soap will be able to make a direct impact on somebody else’s life,” the 15-year-old told Time. “That’s the reason I started this all in the first place,” he added. 

Bekele has been seeing the effects of the sun on people’s skin since he was a young boy growing up in Ethiopia. He noticed many people working in the sun without protecting their skin, the outlet reported. 

Years later, after his family immigrated to the US, the 7-year-old Bekele got a chemistry set for Christmas that came with sodium hydroxide. It was then he began learning the power of chemical reactions. Around that time, he also started thinking more critically about the potential damage prolonged sun exposure can have on the human body. So, he became interested in the research surrounding skin cancer and its treatment. 

“I’m really passionate about skin cancer research,” he told the magazine. “Whether it’s my own research or what’s happening in the field.”

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Bekele eventually learned about imiquimod, a drug that was already approved to treat some forms of skin cancer. When used in a cream form, it can also help destroy tumours. So, the 15-year-old found a way to use imiquimod to treat earlier stages of skin cancer. 

“Almost everyone uses soap and water for cleaning. So soap would probably be the best option,” Bekele said about why he decided to develop a soap. 

Notably, there are still many stages to go before the soap is approved to be used as treatment. According to Time, Bekele potentially has about a decade to go before the soap is approved as a cancer treatment. In the meantime, he’s promoting it in presentations; that is when he’s not playing in the marching band and enjoying a game of chess.

Heman Bekele, a 14-year-old school student, has achieved the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist” by creating an innovative soap specifically formulated to address skin cancer.

1. Heman Bekele is a ninth-grade student at WT Woodson High School in Annandale, Virginia. He has achieved the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist” by creating an innovative soap specifically formulated to address skin cancer.

2. According to The New York Times, Heman spent the last four months competing against nine other finalists, and he developed a compound-based bar of soap designed to treat melanoma. The bar of soap costs about less than $10 to make.

3. Heman hopes to refine his innovation and create a non-profit organisation to distribute the soap to communities in need over the next five years, according to 3M and Discovery Education.

4. According to The New York Times, Heman’s idea for the competition came from the early years of his life in Ethiopia. “There, I always saw people who were constantly working under the hot sun,” Heman said.

5. The soap could help fight skin cancer at a cost of less than $10 per bar. The soap would be made with compounds that could reactivate the cells that guard human skin, enabling them to fight cancer cells.

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