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# Heman Bekele Is TIME’s 2024 Kid of the Year

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/JCGMEpTy.m3u8" -->
## Video: Heman Bekele Is TIME’s 2024 Kid of the Year

[Watch (HLS stream): Heman Bekele Is TIME’s 2024 Kid of the Year](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/JCGMEpTy.m3u8) (3:35)

![Heman Bekele Is TIME’s 2024 Kid of the Year](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/JCGMEpTy/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2024-08-15. Meet the 15-year-old scientist who could change how we treat skin cancer._


---

Aug 19, 2024 4:49 PM UTC

---

## More From This Series

[All Videos](https://time.com/video/)

[ Meet the TIME Kid of the Year: Gitanjali Rao](/video/K1MyVnSZ/)

### Meet the TIME Kid of the Year: Gitanjali Rao

[Who's Your Pick for Time's Person of the Year?](/video/VoHZogz0/)

### Who's Your Pick for Time's Person of the Year?

[Who Should Be TIME's 2010 Person of The Year?](/video/L68zaUg4/)

### Who Should Be TIME's 2010 Person of The Year?

---


## Transcript

My name is Haman Bekele. I'm 15-years-old, and I love science creating, and I recently made skin cancer treating soap. My interest in skin cancer came growing up in Ethiopia, where I saw so many people that were working really long hours under the hot sun. 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. Far before I was mixing ingredients for soap.

I would just mix together potions looking for a reaction and I would call them potions. But really, they were just dish soap, laundry detergent, common household chemicals, and, you know, hide them under my bed, see what would happen if I left them overnight. So my parents always worried, I would one day burn down the house, and it never ended up happening. But at that age, I was more just developing initial curiosity. Every. Hi, I'm Human Mica, and I'm here to end melanoma. Cats. The three Mung scientist challenge was where I first was given the platform to share my ideas. What is the universal product that almost everybody uses or knows how to use?

Cream, kind of, lotion kind of, they could all work, but really soap. Amos everybody uses soap, water, some form of. And so as that universal product, we chose that soap would probably be the best option. Doesn't the active ingredient rinse off when the soap rinses off? That's a great question. So the purpose of the lipid based nanoparticle is it wraps around the drug itself, which is imiquimod. And so once the nanoparticles are loaded with that drug, what happens is the bar of soap goes onto the skin, the water would wash the soaps and suds away, but then the drug would stay on the skin at a very molecular level.

I had a lot of mentors, and I always stressed the importance of mentorship, and they really did help me with not only getting the ingredients, but also learning how to synthesize lipid based nanoparticles. I personally hope one day that skin cancer treating soap can turn into a more not for profit organization, where we can really just distribute it to people that need it the most. So what do you do for fun? For one, the marching band season starting up again, and I love participating in marching band, as well as that, I play chess, which is something that I absolutely love. I love to read. I love playing basketball.

I just try to fit in time when I'm not doing research to pursue my own hobbies, not necessarily to be the best at them, but just to have a really good time. A lot of people have this mindset that everything's been done. There's nothing left for me to do. T anybody having that thought, we'll never run out of ideas in this world. Just keep inventing, keep thinking of new ways to improve on our world and just keep making it a better place. That's so funny.

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