Microwave Pioneers: Arye Rosen, “Microwaves in Medicine Was Just my Hobby”

Abstract

This is the fourth article in our continuing series of biographical pieces with a technical lean. The subject of this paper is Professor Arye Rosen, who -while employed full time at RCA Sarnoff Research Laboratory as an engineer and working on the side more-or-less as a "hobby" -pioneered the use of microwave angioplasty and ablation techniques in cardiology, and later influenced the use of microwaves in the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Dr. Rosen's life story is as varied and interesting as his career path, and his contributions both to traditional microwave devices as well as microwaves in medicine will definitely inspire those of you who feel like they are pulled in more than one direction professionally. In Dr. Rosen's case, he did "have it all," but he worked very hard to make it happen and he took lots of chances …as you will hear! INDEX TERMS Microwave pioneers, Arye Rosen, microwaves in medicine, balloon catheter hyperthermia.1 This article was compiled after two wonderfully entertaining interviews with Dr. Arye Rosen -he used an iPhone no less, on March 3 rd and 5 th , 2021. Normally, the interviews would have been face-to-face, but Covid 19 restrictions forced their conversion into Zoom video conference sessions. Dr. Rosen was in his residence of many years in Cherry Hill, NJ where he could somewhat reasonably commute between Princeton, NJ (

Introduction to the Winter 2023 Issue

“…With most of the world's industrialized nations now having to contend with an increasingly older-age population distribution and a shrinking number of young and affordable healthcare service providers, not to mention the growing concerns over international pandemics, microwave applications in medicine and health monitoring have taken on a new level of importance. Familiar pioneers within our own community, such as Arye Rosen [2] and K. J. Ray Liu [3], amongst many others, have shown us unique ways of applying microwave and even millimeter-wave techniques to solve specific problems within the healthcare community. Liu in particular gives us a great example of how to leverage existing and ubiquitous wireless infrastructure, now in almost every home, and use it to keep tabs on an elderly person living alone to provide a warning of sudden falls [4].…”