Dr. David Brachman, 2022 Copper Black Award winner

Traditionally, radiation treatment for brain tumors requires patients to make regular hospital or clinic visits — but not with GammaTile Therapy, which uses a radiation treatment device designed for inside the brain. Dr. David Brachman was instrumental in its development. Board certified in internal medicine and radiation oncology, he is Cofounder and Chief Technology Officer for GT Medical Technologies, where he invented more than 25 granted patents.

Before commercializing GammaTile Therapy, Dr. Brachman spent more than 15 years at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix as the Chairman and Medical Director of the Radiation Oncology Department and a Codirector of the GammaKnife and CyberKnife programs. Dr. Brachman was also a professor of radiation oncology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix and an assistant professor of radiation and cellular oncology after retraining in radiation oncology at the University of Chicago and serving as an internist in the US Public Health Service.

Dr. Brachman was a member of the National Cancer Institute-sponsored Radiation Therapy Oncology Group CNS Tumor Steering Committee for more than 15 years. He is known for his extensive neuro-oncology clinical trials expertise. He has also authored more than 60 peer-reviewed papers in publications, including The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Cancer Research on work that has advanced our fundamental understanding of tumors and helped enhance the standard of care.

The Copper Black Award for Creative Achievement is not given for the creativity of a person, but for a specific creative achievement that may include an invention that has been patented or otherwise demonstrated to be of practical value, or an innovation that has been implemented, at least in part, to the advantage of persons other than the nominee.