14-Year-Old Creates Skin Cancer Soap With Enormous Potential

Heman Bekele

Skin cancer patients around the world will soon be able to treat the disease easily with an inexpensive bar of soap created by 14-year-old Heman Bekele from Virginia. The Ethiopian-born ninth grader was inspired to create a skin cancer soap so that he could provide affordable and accessible treatment to millions of people, especially those in underdeveloped countries.

He aims to create a non-profit business by 2028, and his invention has been so successful, that he won the $25,000 grand prize in the America’s Top Young Scientist contest sponsored by 3M and Discovery Education.

To understand how Heman’s soap works, it’s necessary to first understand his first basic material: The human skin.

What is Human Skin Made of?

The human skin is a complex and amazing organ. It’s made of multiple layers of cells.

• The Epidermis is the uppermost layer of cells. It’s the part that is visible all over the outside of the body and which most people most commonly think of as skin.
  

• The Squamous Cells form a lining beneath the surface. This layer contains a tough, protective protein called keratin.
  
• Beneath this are the Basal Cells which perform the vital job of producing new skin cells.
  
• The final layer is the Melanocyte Cells. It’s in this layer that our pigmentation, or skin coloring, is produced.

Each of these layers plays a vital role in the health of the body and skin. It’s when these roles are compromised that skin cancer develops.

How Do You Get Skin Cancer?

Many cases of skin cancer are caused by prolonged exposure to ultraviolet A (UVA) radiation from either the sun or tanning beds. Tanning beds emit 12 times more UVA light than light from the sun, and that is why skin cancer often begins with the pursuit of the perfect tan.

Exposure to the sun’s UV rays or the artificial rays of tanning beds causes damage to the DNA in the epidermis. When this happens, the Melanocyte cells produce extra pigment as a layer of protection. This results in tanning or burning. Although many think of a tan as attractive, it’s actually a sign of skin damage.

If the melanocyte cells do not succeed in repairing the damage, the pigmentation cells start growing uncontrollably, eventually developing into cancerous cells and tumors.

Normally, these cancers are treated with surgeries and expensive radiation or chemotherapy. People in underdeveloped countries who can’t get these treatments are far more likely to go undiagnosed and become very sick.

“I was looking into the issue of skin cancer and the fact that, especially in third world countries, people living under the poverty line just can’t afford the treatment necessary for skin cancer led me to try to come up with a solution and that solution ended up being a Skin Cancer Treating Soap.”

HemaN bEKELe

Heman entered America’s Top Young Scientist competition. There, he was assigned a mentor who could coach him in the scientific knowledge he needed and put him in contact with experts who could offer further help. Using these resources, the young boy developed a simple soap treatment that costs just $0.50 a bar.

What is Skin Cancer Soap Made of?

The skin cancer soap contains three chemicals that activate bone marrow or white blood cells. White blood cells are primary players in the human body’s immune system. These cells are known as dendritic cells, and they are essential in the fight against cancer.

• Salicylic acid: Breaks down layers of thick skin and helps the skin to shed dead cells from the top layer.

• Glycolic acid: Removes the top layers of dead skin. Besides treating scarring, and hyperpigmentation, it also helps to reverse sun damage.
• Tretinoin: Treats sun damage by speeding up the life cycle of skin cells. This way, they divide and die faster to be replaced by newer and healthier skin cells.

Joining other cancer-fighting endeavours, such as exploring the coral reefs for effective medicinal substances, and the establishment of legislation to ban cancer-causing chemicals, the soap is a particularly innovative new approach.

The soap is created to help the internal layers of the skin. A relaxing wash with soap every few couple of days is supposed to reduce and even reverse UV ray damage.

America’s Top Young Scientist 2023

For Heman Bekel, being named America’s Top Young Scientist is just the first step. 

The soap is not on the market yet but will soon be available by prescription.

“By 2028, I hope to turn SCTS [Skin Cancer Treatment Soap], which is right now just a passion project into more than that. I hope to turn it into a nonprofit organization where I can provide equitable and accessible skin cancer treatment to as many people as possible.”

– hEMAN bEKELe

Meanwhile, he’s still striving toward his goal to be an electrical engineer who is instrumental in shaping the future of the world’s technology…

And he’s off to a tremendous start.