Talk about an explorer moment.

For Harvard professor Pardis Sabeti, life inextricably changed on July 17, 2015, the moment the all-terrain vehicle she was riding in careened off a Montana road. The incident nearly killed her, shattering Sabeti's pelvis and knees and causing a host of lingering medical issues for the woman regarded as a rock star of the science world for her work in disease-related genetic research.

Sixteen months to the day of the accident, Sabeti still has 40 metal plates and pins in her body from several post-accident surgeries, and suffers from chronic pain, vertigo, and bouts of respiratory inflammation.

"With that much hardware in your body and that much trauma, there’s a new normal you’re working with,’’ says Sabeti,