Young teen wins top science prize for soap that can treat skin cancer

Memory of Ethiopian workers out in the sun inspired US schoolboy to make cell-reviving soap

A woman washing her hands with a bar of soap
The soap, which costs just 50 cents (40p) to make, contains compounds that could reactivate dendritic cells that guard human skin against cancer
(Image credit: Getty Images)

A 14-year-old boy has been named "America's top young scientist" after developing a bar of soap that could help treat melanoma. 

Heman Bekele, a ninth-grader from Virginia, won the 3M Young Scientist Challenge after pitching a bar of soap, called Skin Cancer Treating Soap (SCTS), made from compounds that could "reactivate dendritic cells that guard human skin", said The Guardian. This means they can fight cancer cells. He declared in his submission that he wanted to cure cancer "one bar of soap at a time".

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us

Keumars Afifi-Sabet is a freelance writer at The Week Digital, and is the technology editor on Live Science, another Future Publishing brand. He was previously features editor with ITPro, where he commissioned and published in-depth articles around a variety of areas including AI, cloud computing and cybersecurity. As a writer, he specialises in technology and current affairs. In addition to The Week Digital, he contributes to Computeractive and TechRadar, among other publications.