Heman Bekele is a name to be reckoned with, and the world is taking notice. On Thursday, TIME Magazine named the 15 year old “2024 Kid of the Year” for his impressive scientific results in creating a soap bar that treats melanoma. Bekele hails from Fairfax, Virginia, but was originally born-and spent some of his childhood-in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
“My interest in skin cancer came [from] growing up in Ethiopia where I saw so many people that were working really long hours under the hot sun,” Bekele told TIME. “But, when I came here to America, I realized how big of a problem the sun and UV radiation is when you’re exposed to it for really long periods of time, and so that’s what inspired me to go towards skin cancer because really right now, there are no affordable and accessible alternatives to the really pricey treatment in the market.”
A true science fanatic, Bekele has been experimenting with different concoctions since he was four years old. He would call these out-of-the-box mixtures his “potions” which would commonly consist of regular household items like dish soap and laundry detergent.
While his parents were concerned he might burn down the house-and there may have been a few close calls-they were very supportive of Bekele’s curiosity from a young age, and even got him a chemistry set with chemical samples for his seventh birthday. By then he was already voraciously googling different compounds and reactions to experiment with that could help bring solutions to different world issues. This eventually led to Bekele’s invention of his soap (which he calls MTS-Melanoma Treating Soap), and catapulted him into the limelight across the world.
“Hi, I’m Heman Bekele and I’m here to end melanoma,” Bekele proudly states in his submission video to the 3M Young Scientist Challenge.
This challenge served as a platform for Bekele to execute and showcase his findings on a broader spectrum. The then-14 year old went on to win the competition and receive a $25,000 prize to fund his future research.
In an NPR interview, Bekele explains how his MTS soap works.
“MTS is a compound based bar of soap and it’s charged with different cancer fighting chemicals,” he said. “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.”
Bekele found that Imidazoquinoline worked on the skin, and he paired it with other compounds that would help it seamlessly enter and work below the surface.
While Bekele’s MTS soap bar has shown great potential he still notes that there’s still more work to do. Following the 3M Young Scientist Challenge, the teenager met molecular biologist and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Vito Rebecca. Rebecca sponsored Bekele’s lab research while he commuted between high school in Fairfax, and the Baltimore lab. According to TIME, Bekele and Rebecca have been running lab tests on mice for the past year and a half and are getting ready to move to the next level of testing. Bekele highlights that they still will need to eventually patent the soap and get an FDA certification-which can take years to acquire.
Luckily, Bekele has time-seriously he’s only 15! As a teenager the young man is already on a promising track to have a cancer cure/treatment, and that’s more than what 99% of teenagers-let alone adults-say they have accomplished in science and for humanity. Bekele’s passion for science and doing good should be an inspiration to all of us.
“A lot of people have this mindset that everything’s been done, there’s nothing left for me to do,” Bekele told TIME. “To anybody having that thought, [I’d say] we’ll never run out of ideas in this world. Just keep inventing. Keep thinking of new ways to improve our world and keep making it a better place.”
