Age: 18
Education: Bogomolets National Medical University in Kyiv
Profession: Inventor, scientist and future oncologist
Did you know? Before she turned 15 Olga aimed to become a professional dancer in contemporary and jazz-funk genres
A schoolgirl from the Donbas city of Mariupol, Olga Kharasakhal spent three years volunteering in a local oncology center helping its patients to overcome cancer.
While working there, she realized that she can help even more. Kharasakhal came up with an idea for how to detect melanoma, skin cancer, and treat it in the earliest stage. That invention has become a breakthrough.
Kharasakhal’s diagnostic method brought her recognition globally, golden medals in international science Olympiads and an invitation to the University of Chicago. However, for now, she remains in Kyiv, where she moved from Mariupol in September to study medicine.
Kharasakhal became a volunteer in the oncology center because it was lacking employees. People were moving out of Mariupol, which is near the war zone. The hospital was looking for help and she was happy to do so, Kharasakhal said.
“There is no other motivation than genuine love for people,” she said. Her dream is to make cancer treatment affordable and accessible to anyone in the world.
The discovery she made helps to identify tumor cells as they form and treat melanoma in the most effective way, according to Kharasakhal. There is a similar method in the U.S. called Cell Search. However, the benefit of her Ukrainian one, Kharasakhal said, is that the blood test will cost 100 times less than its American analog. Based upon international standards, the quality is essentially the same, she stressed.
Kharasakhal has two patents on her invention in Ukraine. One protects the authenticity of her methodology. The other covers the device she created to undertake tumor cells searchs. Now she aims to obtain an international patent and is seeking funding for certifying the methodology in Ukraine and internationally. That is needed to implement the technology in hospitals.
Currently, patients from around the world travel to countries like Israel and the United States for medical care. Kharasakhal believes that, if diagnostics are strong and prices low in Ukraine, patients will come here.
“I want to make Ukraine as attractive for medical tourism as Israel is,” she said.
Her invention has already attracted the world’s attention. Israeli and Norwegian hospitals have contacted her, saying they want to switch from the American Cell Search technology to the one she created.
“They want to bring my methodology to Israel and Norway or, alternately, send their patients to Ukraine for diagnostics,” Kharasakhal said.
After the science Olympiad Kharasakhal won in Brazil this year, she received an invitation to partner with the Free Science international organization.
“We may end up implementing my invention in Brazil in the future,” she said.
Kharasakhal said that the methodology of tumor cell indication is of urgent need in countries like Brazil, which has a warm climate and intensive insolation. Her city, Mariupol, is situated on the Azov seashore and was a popular destination for summer tourism before the war started. However, locals still sunbathe at the city beach. Sunburns received in childhood can cause melanoma at an older age, she said.
However, Kharasakhal believes that the world already knows how to fight cancer and can do it even better in the future. Now, she said, it is time to learn how to fight with people’s fear before cancer.
