This was also the time when the medical doctors started to observe an unexpected serious side-effect, while treating their cancer patients with a new generation of breakthrough medicine. Doctors in the field always had hoped for a novel technology of targeting an internal tumor with a pin-point blast of killer lethal rays without affecting neighboring healthy cells. A technique of “proton therapy” of directing charged hydrogen atoms, instead of X-rays, to annihilate a tumor had emerged in the horizon. However, the delivery apparatus for this new treatment to patients remained elusive. After painstaking efforts of several years, Dr. Rosen was finally successful building a prototype delivery device made up of a composite material (nanosized) that received fast-track clearance from the regulatory agencies.
Soon after, Dr. Rosen, an active outdoors sportswoman, would decide to take her daughter and niece on a two-day hiking trip on the Bright Angel Trail in country’s famous Grand Canyon. On first day, they would descend all the way to the valley where the mighty Colorado River, responsible for sculpting the canyon was flowing. They would spend the night in cabins in the Phantom Ranch, after enjoying a steak-dinner as well as stargazing with fellow hikers.
Next day, the trio started their return journey in early morning. It quickly became clear to them that the return trip would be a strenuous one due to the nature of steep ascending. They would take frequent breaks. However, Dr. Rosen realized her brain was becoming foggy, while her thoughts were wandering all over. The team slowed down the pace allowing her more time. But nothing would help. Though she was physically up to the task, she felt a storm brewing inside her brain with thoughts becoming more dark and abnormal. Fortunately, with help from her daughter and niece, she finished the last several kilometers of ascend.
While returning home, exhausted Dr. Rosen visited her local hospital. Doctors there admitted her for the night in order to carry on some tests and scans. Next morning, sitting on her hospital-bed, she was drinking coffee, still with a foggy state of brain. There was a knock on the door. Chief neurosurgeon of the hospital entered and showed her several brain-scanning films. In one of them, a mustard-sized mass was circled red. The surgeon informed the precise position of this new growth was deep inside the brain-region, responsible for human memory and thought processes.
That afternoon, Dr. Rosen became the first human success of her own invention.