A Kid Who’s Kicking Skin Cancer’s Butt
This whiz kid is the talk of the town. When he was just 14 years old in 2023, Heman Bekele invented a cancer-fighting soap. It’s an affordable and accessible treatment option that could soon be a way to help treat skin cancers.
His background
Born in 2009 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Bekele moved to the USA with his parents when he was four, growing up in Annandale, Virginia. He’s stated that, “in Ethiopia, I always thought people were always getting hit by the hot sun working outside. I didn’t think much of it when I was really little, but as I grew up I realized how big of an issue [skin cancer] really is. Not only in Ethiopia but everywhere around the world.”
His innovation
How did this young inventor and scientific researcher accomplish this feat? His brilliant idea was to change the form of the drug imiquimod, an immunotherapy already used for the treatment of a dangerous type of skin cancer called melanoma, from a cream (its current application) to a bar of soap. To ensure the medication is not rinsed away in the shower or bathwater, his stroke of genius was to suggest combining it with lipid nanoparticles – very small particles composed of lipids, which are organic compounds that do not dissolve in water. The medicine in the soap thus remains attached to the skin.
Bekele holding a prototype of his soap (photo: Heman Bekele website)
In Bekele’s own words, his Skin Cancer Treating Soap “is a compound based bar of soap and it’s charged with different cancer fighting chemicals, the main one being this agent called imidazoquinoline. It’s quite a mouthful, but it’s this drug that is commonly used for different antifungals and acne treatments and has recently been looked into in the field of skin cancer. I really realized that it was a viable option for topical applications, like a soap. Using that drug, as well as other components like a nanolipid based particle transporter that [delivers the] drug throughout the skin, was actually a really effective solution for some cancer.” Subsequent computer simulations showed that the nanoparticles could carry the skin cancer drug directly to cancer lesions.
To develop and then prove that the medication maintains its effectiveness in soap and that washing with it helps to treat patients with melanoma, Bekele has worked with 3M product engineering specialist Deborah Isabelle and with Vito Rebecca, a molecular biologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who invited him to work in his lab. There, Bekele is able to conduct research and experiments to test the efficacy of his invention.
His aspirations
Bekele aims to obtain US Food and Drug Administration approval for his soap and plans to establish a non-profit organization to distribute it worldwide by 2028, making skin cancer treatment more accessible everywhere.
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.”
– Heman Bekele
Wow!