Newswise — Keith L. Black, M.D., director of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute and the Division of Neurosurgery, will receive a Trumpet Award for his contributions to the field of medicine during the 14th annual Trumpet Awards ceremony in Atlanta on Monday, Jan. 23.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, musician Stevie Wonder, and Danny Bakewell, president of the Brotherhood Crusade and long-time activist in the Los Angeles African-American community, will receive special awards. Trumpet Awards also will be presented to Lorenzo Creighton for achievements in business; Dr. Bobby Jones, television; Vivica A. Fox, film; Judge Leah Ward Sears, law; Usher, entertainment; and Reverend C.T. Vivian, civil rights.
"I am very honored to receive a Trumpet Award and humbled to be in the company of the present recipients as well as those who have been honored in the past," said Black, who founded the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute in 1997. He previously served for 10 years on the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles, after earning his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Michigan, where he also completed an internship in surgery and a residency in neurological surgery.
Black published his first scientific paper at age 17, earning the Westinghouse Science Award. He has channeled his scientific curiosity and ingenuity into the Institute, where teams of surgeons, clinicians and researchers now collaborate to study, treat, and develop new therapies for the wide variety of disorders that can occur within the brain.
Of particular interest to Black are malignant and highly aggressive brain tumors called gliomas, and he and his colleagues have made numerous discoveries in the areas of gene therapy, gene discovery, immunology, and the blood brain barrier that blocks the effective treatment of brain tumors with chemotherapy. They also developed a dendritic cell vaccine that has made its way from the laboratory into patient trials. According to early studies, the vaccine has a significant impact on length of survival among patients suffering from these treatment-resistant cancers.
As a teen, Black, the son of educators, managed to get himself accepted by scientists in the laboratories of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where he observed their research and studied their methods. Today, he is committed to sharing his excitement for science with the next generation. Each year, for example, the Institute sponsors and hosts a program called Brainworks for seventh- and eighth-grade students from Los Angeles area schools. And scholarships provided through Cedars-Sinai and other organizations make research experience available to students in undergraduate and graduate programs.
Black and his wife, Carol J. Bennett, M.D., a urologist, have two children, Teal Etoile Black and Keith Quinten Black.
The Trumpet Awards Dinner will be held in the Georgia World Congress Center on Jan 23, beginning at 6 p.m. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., is the presenting sponsor. Xernona Clayton, a civil rights activist and the first African-American woman to hold a position as corporate vice president at Turner Broadcasting/CNN, is creator and executive producer of the Trumpet Awards.
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