BCN Ep #3 14-year-old scientist Heman Bekele on his quest to fight skin cancer with soap

BCN Ep #3
14-year-old scientist Heman Bekele on his quest to fight skin cancer with soap

According to PBS

Heman Bekele spent the last year developing a bar of soap that could treat skin cancer. It was the winning entry at the annual 3M Young Scientist Challenge, considered one of the top science and engineering competitions for fifth through eighth graders. For our Weekend Spotlight, John Yang speaks with Bekele about his work.

Heman Bekele:

Sure. So SCTS, which stands for Skin Cancer Treating Soap, is basically this compound based bar of soap that's charged with different cancer fighting chemicals to help treat different forms of skin cancer. Pretty much the way that it works is it uses this drug called imidazoquinolines, and it wraps it around this lipid based nanoparticle.

And the concept here is that even though the soaps and suds will be washed away by the soap, there will still be all of the medicinal components stuck there by the lipid based nanoparticle. And this is kind of a more new and novel approach to fighting against skin cancer.

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