Discover the low-cost cancer treatment developed by a young inventor. The future could be in excellent hands after all. Heman Bekele, a freshman at W.T. Woodson High School in Annandale, Virginia, won this year’s 3M Young Scientist Challenge for his bar soap that heals skin cancer earlier this month.
He was inspired, he says, by recollections of people working long hours in the hot heat in Ethiopia, where he was born before moving to the United States when he was four.
Even at that young age, Bekele noted the significant discrepancies in skin cancer survival rates in Sub-Saharan Africa compared to locations where high-tech cancer therapies are accessible.
“Skin cancer is mostly found in developing countries,” he told Fairfax County Public Schools News. “However, the average cost of an operation is $45,000.” I was heartbroken by the thought of individuals having to pick between therapy and putting food on the table for their families. There are too many unnecessary fatalities.”
The soap, which employs a cancer-fighting ingredient, soap bases, and other medications and chemicals to help cure various types of skin cancer, costs $.50 to create and will cost about $8.50 for a box of 20 bars.
But it needed more than intelligence to create it; it also required dedication. Finding the perfect balance of chemicals to guarantee the soap stayed together without flaking into bits was a huge problem.
He passed this test using 3M Cavilon (a moisturizer and barrier cream), coconut oil, and organic shea butter.
“It was so difficult to get a bar of soap that didn’t melt right away,” Bekele recalls, adding that he must have attempted a dozen different combinations. “Persistence is a very important part of the scientific process.”
Over the following five years, the young scientist plans to utilize his $25,000 prize money to perfect this new discovery and establish a charity to deliver his low-cost solution to communities in need.
For those of you who are thinking, “Good for this young man, but what does it have to do with me; Black people don’t get skin cancer,” think again. Bob Marley died of melanoma that had spread to his lungs and brain.
According to the American Academy of Dermatology Association, skin cancer is the most frequent cancer in the United States, and it is often identified in later stages, when it is more difficult to cure.
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