Heman Bekele is a 15-year-old scientist who has just been elected Kid of the Year (“child of the year”)) by the magazine Time. He is working on an innovative soap that could treat early and advanced stages of skin cancer. While animal testing has yet to begin, his idea is being taken very seriously by leading researchers.
At 15 years old, Heman Bekele has just won the title of Kid of the Year by the magazine Time. Why such a gratification? Originally from Ethiopia, he arrived in the United States at the age of 4 with his family, and is said to have invented a soap capable of preventing and treating several forms of skin cancer, including melanoma, a potentially aggressive tumor that, if treated at a late stage, can metastasize and lead to the death of the patient. In France, 17,922 new cases of melanoma were diagnosed in 2023 and it caused 1,980 deaths in 2018. Worldwide, 132,000 melanomas are detected each year, according to theWorld Health OrganizationWorld Health Organization.
Imiquimod effective against melanoma
Concretely, what is Heman Bekele’s idea? It was born when this enthusiast of chemistrychemistry hears about imiquimod, an antitumor drug that modifies the immune responseimmune responseThe drug comes in the form of a cream, indicated in the topical treatment of external genital and perianal warts in adults, but also against a form of skin cancerskin cancersmall superficial basal cell carcinomas. Several studies have also shown that the drug could be effective against melanoma. Heman Bekele then wondered if it would be possible to make it a less expensive treatment, easier for patients to access and use.
He then thought about an object that everyone uses, regardless of their socio-economic class.. “Almost everyone uses soap and water to clean themselves, so soap would probably be the best option,” he explains to the Time. Mixing the medicine with a regular bar of soap may not be enough, the moussemousse soap eliminating the therapeutic power of imiquimod. The solution could then be to combine the soap with nanoparticlesnanoparticles lipid-based which would persist on the skin once the soap is removed.
First tests coming soon
After winning $25,000 as the first person in a competition, he was then able to find a professional laboratory to host his research after meeting Professor Vito Rebecca, a biologist at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (United States). For six months, they have both been conducting basic research on mice. This involves injecting strains of skin cancer, thenapplicationapplication lipid soap, into which imiquimod was introduced.
Heman Bekele, Time magazine’s Kid of the Year, explains his approach. © Time magazine
The first tests will take place soon, but there is still a long way to go before the soap sees the light of day… if it sees the light of day. In addition to the tests, and only if they prove encouraging, the soap still needs to be patented and the certificationcertification of the Food and Drug administrationFood and Drug administrationthe American drug certification agency. In all, if this soap against melanoma obtains a marketing authorizationmarketing authorizationit could take a decade in total, estimates the Time.
But Heman Bekele has time, at just 15 years old. He hopes to make it a treatment for skin cancers at an early stage, in particular stage 0 when there is only a small growth on the skin. But also at higher stages, in addition to other treatments.
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