Keith L. Black, M.D.

Dr. Black serves as Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery and Director of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

He also holds the title of Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery. An internationally renowned neurosurgeon and scientist, Dr. Black joined Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in July 1997 and was awarded the Ruth and Lawrence Harvey Chair in Neuroscience in November of that year.

Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Black served on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) faculty for 10 years where he was a Professor of Neurosurgery.

In 1992, he was awarded the Ruth and Raymond Stotter Chair in the Department of Surgery and was Head of the UCLA Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program.

Dr. Black pioneered research on designing ways to open the blood-brain barrier, enabling chemotherapeutic drugs to be delivered directly into the tumor. His work in this field received the Jacob Javits award from the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council of the National Institutes of Health in June 2000.

Dr. Black's other groundbreaking research has focused on developing a vaccine to enhance the body's immune response to brain tumors, use of gene arrays to develop molecular profiles of tumors and the use of optical technology for brain mapping.

He was featured on the cover of Time magazine in the Fall 1997 special edition "Heroes of Medicine."