5 ms·

US student, 14, wins award for developing soap to treat skin cancer

27 points by jpster 3y ago

matteoraso 3y ago
This article is remarkably sparse on details. Here's an article that explains what the soap is[0]. The TL;DR is that it uses a chemical called Imidazoquinoline, which is not yet approved for skin cancer treatment at all but is currently being investigated. The soap has not been tested on cancer patients and does not have FDA approval. I don't want to sound like I'm dunking on the kid, since he's obviously very intelligent and has a bright future ahead of him, but this isn't nearly as good as the media is making it out to be. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/10/27/1209048618/q-a-this-scientist-developed-a-soap-that-could-help-fight-skin-cancer-hes-14 https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/10/27/1209048...
- moscoe 3y ago
  The media is so thirsty.
  - vasdae 3y ago
    Before I clicked I already imagined what the picture of the student would look like.
- jszymborski 3y ago
  Specifically using the phrase "curing cancer" is deeply inappropriate. I do, however, have no doubt young Bekele is off to a bright career.
zubairq 3y ago
Quite amazing. I am guessing that because of FDA and medical approval that the soap won't be available in US/UK?
precompute 3y ago
Sigh... this is yet another case of parents instructing their children to unscrupulously pad their college applications. No 14 year old can "develop a soap" to "treat skin cancer". Does not happen. For these competitions, these kids only make impressive slides with huge hypotheticals. Most impressive hypothetical wins. No one's "developed" anything. Also, it's pretty absurd to expect a soap to treat skin cancer. The evidence for the sun inducing skin cancer is not strong. Using something to then counteract the non-existent effect might just end up becoming responsible for a form of cancer itself. After all, it's much easier to get cancer than to cure it.
- jeeeb 3y ago
  > The evidence for the sun inducing skin cancer is not strong. Say what!? The main cause of skin cancer is UV radiation from sunlight. Go spend a day outside unprotected from the sun in the Australian summer and tell me otherwise. If you have a light skin pigmentation you’ll be in physical pain and cold shivers from the damage to your skin. Keep damaging your skin cells enough times and you have a recipe for skin cancer. Australia and NZ have sky high rates of skin cancer (like significantly higher than any other countries in the world) because they have a large population of people with little natural protection living close to the equator where UV radiation is high.
  - didgeoridoo 3y ago
    The evidence for sunburn inducing skin cancer is strong. The evidence for sun exposure is far more mixed, especially with regard to melanoma. That said, there probably is no such thing as “safe unprotected sun exposure” in Oz summer, at least if you’re not very dark-skinned. Very fair-skinned people can develop the beginnings of burn in a literal matter of minutes.
  - precompute 3y ago
    > The main cause of skin cancer is UV radiation from sunlight. This is not true. The main cause of skin cancer for most people is often unrelated to sun exposure. And sunscreen, ironically enough, is a great contributor towards cancer. The sun doesn't give us cancer. That it's somehow "harmful" for people to be in direct sunlight is an absurd notion. Getting strong sunlight everyday for an hour or two won't kill you or give you cancer. It'll be great for you.
userinanother 3y ago
Why not just mix sunscreen ingredients in soap? Then you would be providing some minimal protection all the time. It’s not super effective but you can make claims that it protects against the sun.
B5C8ECB24DB47D1 3y ago
Thread from 5 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37994561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37994561

27 points by jpster 3y ago

This article is remarkably sparse on details. Here's an article that explains what the soap is[0]. The TL;DR is that it uses a chemical called Imidazoquinoline, which is not yet approved for skin cancer treatment at all but is currently being investigated. The soap has not been tested on cancer patients and does not have FDA approval. I don't want to sound like I'm dunking on the kid, since he's obviously very intelligent and has a bright future ahead of him, but this isn't nearly as good as the media is making it out to be. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/10/27/1209048618/q-a-this-scientist-developed-a-soap-that-could-help-fight-skin-cancer-hes-14 https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/10/27/1209048...

moscoe 3y ago
The media is so thirsty.
- vasdae 3y ago
  Before I clicked I already imagined what the picture of the student would look like.
jszymborski 3y ago
Specifically using the phrase "curing cancer" is deeply inappropriate. I do, however, have no doubt young Bekele is off to a bright career.

zubairq 3y ago

Quite amazing. I am guessing that because of FDA and medical approval that the soap won't be available in US/UK?

precompute 3y ago

Sigh... this is yet another case of parents instructing their children to unscrupulously pad their college applications. No 14 year old can "develop a soap" to "treat skin cancer". Does not happen. For these competitions, these kids only make impressive slides with huge hypotheticals. Most impressive hypothetical wins. No one's "developed" anything. Also, it's pretty absurd to expect a soap to treat skin cancer. The evidence for the sun inducing skin cancer is not strong. Using something to then counteract the non-existent effect might just end up becoming responsible for a form of cancer itself. After all, it's much easier to get cancer than to cure it.

jeeeb 3y ago
> The evidence for the sun inducing skin cancer is not strong. Say what!? The main cause of skin cancer is UV radiation from sunlight. Go spend a day outside unprotected from the sun in the Australian summer and tell me otherwise. If you have a light skin pigmentation you’ll be in physical pain and cold shivers from the damage to your skin. Keep damaging your skin cells enough times and you have a recipe for skin cancer. Australia and NZ have sky high rates of skin cancer (like significantly higher than any other countries in the world) because they have a large population of people with little natural protection living close to the equator where UV radiation is high.
- didgeoridoo 3y ago
  The evidence for sunburn inducing skin cancer is strong. The evidence for sun exposure is far more mixed, especially with regard to melanoma. That said, there probably is no such thing as “safe unprotected sun exposure” in Oz summer, at least if you’re not very dark-skinned. Very fair-skinned people can develop the beginnings of burn in a literal matter of minutes.
- precompute 3y ago
  > The main cause of skin cancer is UV radiation from sunlight. This is not true. The main cause of skin cancer for most people is often unrelated to sun exposure. And sunscreen, ironically enough, is a great contributor towards cancer. The sun doesn't give us cancer. That it's somehow "harmful" for people to be in direct sunlight is an absurd notion. Getting strong sunlight everyday for an hour or two won't kill you or give you cancer. It'll be great for you.

userinanother 3y ago

Why not just mix sunscreen ingredients in soap? Then you would be providing some minimal protection all the time. It’s not super effective but you can make claims that it protects against the sun.

B5C8ECB24DB47D1 3y ago

Thread from 5 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37994561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37994561