Thirty years before Blakely arrived at Berkeley, Robert Wilson, later founding director of Fermilab, had been working there with Ernest Lawrence when he realized that because protons and heavier ions deposit most of their energy near the end of their range in matter – the famous “Bragg peak” – they offered the opportunity of treating deep-seated tumours while minimizing damage to surrounding tissue (CERN Courier December 2006 p17). Assigned the task of studying the biological effectiveness of a variety of particles and energies available from Berkeley’s accelerators, Blakely irradiated dishes of human cell cultures, working along increasing depths of the Bragg peak for the various beams under different conditions.