[10] He created and performed numerous previously un-described surgeries on the brain including a new approach to the removal of acoustic tumors that spared vital nerves for facial muscle function which had been routinely sacrificed in older techniques.
Rand also utilized cryosurgery to treat thousands of patients with tumors of the pituitary gland via a procedure termed Stereotactic Cryohypopyhysectomy.
In 1975, in conjunction with the scientists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Palo Alto, California, Rand developed a Superconducting Magnet which would hold a liquid silicone-iron compound in position deep within the brain while it solidified, thus obliterating blood vessel malformations which could not be accessed by traditional surgical methods.
[13] Through his close relationship with its inventor, Lars Leksell, Rand brought the first Gamma Knife into the United States and gifted it to UCLA School of Medicine in 1979.
[14] The Gamma Knife offers highly selective radiation to pinpoint targets in the brain thus avoiding surrounding tissue damage.
In the early 1980s, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, Rand was assisted by physicists in creating the instrumentation for another novel procedure he called Thermomagnetic Surgery.