Cancer
Heman Bekele was inspired by Ethiopian workers working under the sun and wanted to help “as many people as possible.”
Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 1:58 p.m. BST
A middle school student has been named “America’s Best Young Scientist” after developing a bar of soap that could be useful in treating melanoma, a skin cancer that is diagnosed in about 100,000 people in the United States each year and kills about 8,000 people .
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Heman Bekele, a 14-year-old ninth-grader from Annandale, Virginia, won the award after beating out nine other finalists.
“Cure cancer, one bar of soap at a time,” he said in his post. “I have always been interested in biology and technology and this challenge gave me the perfect platform to present my ideas,” he added.
He presented his idea for a soap – the “skin cancer treatment soap” – made of compounds that could reactivate dendritic cells that protect human skin, allowing them to fight cancer cells. In a video for the 3M Young Scientist Challenge, Bekele said he believes “young minds can have a positive impact on the world.”
Bekele’s idea came about when he was four years old living in Ethiopia, where, he told the Washington Post, he saw people constantly working under the hot sun: “I wanted to turn my idea into something that wasn’t just scientific “but also was great.” could be accessible to as many people as possible.”
His mentor at 3M, Deborah Isabelle, described the teen to the outlet as “focused on making the world a better place for people he hasn’t necessarily met yet.”
According to the American Cancer Society (ACA), skin cancer is the most common of all cancers, with melanoma accounting for only 1% but causing the majority of skin cancer deaths.
The society says rates of melanoma have risen rapidly in recent decades, particularly among women over 50, and are more than 20 times more common in whites than blacks. At the same time, melanoma mortality rates have declined over the past decade due to advances in treatment.
After winning the award, Bekele told the jury he hoped to make the soap a “symbol of hope, accessibility and a world where skin cancer treatment is within everyone’s reach.”
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