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Before cutting, Black maps out a brain tumor to make certain he doesn't slice into vital tissue. If the cancer is too intertwined with "eloquent brain," he'll try another course |
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When Black was in eighth grade, his family moved to Cleveland,
Ohio, and he started hanging out in the labs at Case Western
Reserve University. By high school, he was performing organ
transplants and heart-valve replacements in dogs. At 17 he was a
semifinalist in the national Westinghouse science competition
for his research on the damage done to red blood cells in
patients with heart-valve replacements. That year he was
accepted in a University of Michigan six-year program that
offered degrees in biomedical science and medicine.
From the beginning, Black was fascinated by the brain. "It's the most beautiful thing you will ever see," he says, "not so much on the surface but when you get around the optic nerves and the cranial nerves and around the brain stem. There's a saying: If you want to understand the artist, you study his art. If you want to understand God, you study the anatomy of the brain." (Black is a Lutheran and attends church with his wife, UCLA urologist Carol Bennett, and their two children.) Initially, he was drawn to try to understand the mystery of consciousness itself--to fathom the connection between the physical brain and the elusive thing called the mind. He plunged into neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, neurophysiology, philosophy, religion and mysticism--until it began to dawn on him that he was "learning more and more about less and less." He started to question whether science could understand consciousness at all, and halfway through medical school he returned to more pragmatic pursuits in the lab. Black was still interested in the brain, however. His lab work included studies on how a number of substances, including barbiturates and naturally occurring body chemicals called prostaglandins--and, because it promotes the production of prostaglandins, aspirin as well--could be helpful in preventing or limiting the damage caused by stroke. Then in 1981 he read an article that identified a class of compounds called leukotrienes. These natural body compounds promote swelling after injury by making blood vessels leaky. Black knew that a major limiting factor in fighting brain tumors was the blood-brain barrier, which prevents cancer-killing drugs from entering brain tissue from the bloodstream. If leukotrienes made vessels leaky, he suspected, then these or similar compounds might help break through that barrier. From then on, he was hooked. Brain cancer was such a powerful, tricky and deadly enemy that Black decided he would try to conquer it. It was an ambitious goal, even for a man who would later be dubbed "Indiana Black" for his daring exploits outdoors--skydiving, whitewater rafting and trekking through the Himalayas--while maintaining a demanding schedule in the operating room and the research labs. Black has been on safari and rafted down the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe. He has climbed Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro and made it to 17,000 ft. on Manaslu, in Nepal.
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