Heman Bekele is not your typical high school student. Rather than spending his free time playing video games or staring at his phone, this 14 year-old from Fairfax, Virginia was calling professors and conducting experiments, all to invent a product he hopes could help change the world.
His goal is to create a soap that could treat skin cancer, and to make it affordable for everyone who needs it.
His work won him the grand prize in this year’s 3M Young Scientist’s Challenge, a competition that encourages kids to think of unique ways to solve everyday problems.
Bekele’s award-winning soap was inspired by his childhood in Ethiopia before moving to the United States at the age of 4. The soap delivers cancer- fighting drugs via lipid nanoparticles – which work to activate the body’s immune cells to fend off cancer.
Deborah Isabelle, Bekele’s 3M mentor, who helped him refine his cancer-fighting soap during the finalist competition, describes Bekele as, “kind, intelligent, focused, inspiring and energetic. He’s going to continue to inspire other young people to realize that science can make a positive difference.”
NPR spoke to Bekele about his cancer fighting soap, winning the 3M Young Scientist Challenge and what he hopes to do in the future. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Congratulations on winning the 3M Young Scientist’s challenge! How did you first get into science and what inspired you to make your cancer-fighting soap?
I’ve always been really passionate about science and how things work. Then, slowly, as I grew up, that curiosity started to develop into something more. Growing up in Ethiopia, I always thought people were always getting hit by the hot sun working outside. I didn’t think much of it when I was really little, but as I grew up I realized how big of an issue [skin cancer] really is. Not only in Ethiopia but everywhere around the world.
And when [people] do end up getting skin cancer, it’s crazy expensive [to treat] and not…
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