Marilena Streit Bianchi was a true pioneer. She arrived at CERN in 1969 coming from the Istituto Superiore di Sanitá of Rome, and her goal was to study the biological properties of accelerated particle beams for the treatment of tumours. She has been following closely some of the most fundamental developments in medical diagnosis, in particular those on the innovative PET technology initiated at CERN in the '70s by D. Townsend and A. Jeavons. Marilena has studied and documented years of technological and economical spin-offs of particle physics on industry and society. During the construction of the LHC, she has been responsible of the Technology Transfer section of CERN.