ABSTRACT
Allan Hoffman's contributions to the field of biomaterials have been monumental. His first published paper was in 1955. His first paper on surface technology (radiation grafting) appeared in 1959. By 1969 he had a published a paper on hydrogels for desalination (synthetic hydrogels were first accurately described in 1960; it is this paper that convinced me to come to Seattle to work with Allan). His first papers focusing on biomedical polymers began appearing about 1971. Once Allan had coalesced his vision of polymers in medicine and surgery, it was as if floodgates were opened. A tsunami of hundreds of papers followed, surging through the intellectual landscape and shaping the terrain of biomaterials as we know it today. What has Allan Hoffman given us? Here is a short list (probably incomplete): biomedical hydrogels, mechanics of natural tissue, surface modification, new surface analysis methods, covalent biomolecule immobilization on biomaterials, nonfouling surfaces, drug delivery technology, new concepts in blood compatibility, stimuli-sensitive polymers (polyNIPAM was brought to our community by Hoffman), immunoassays, biomolecule separations, smart bioconjugates and novel gene delivery molecules. Allan Hoffman has profoundly influenced current ideas in biomaterials such that, without his guiding light, many ideas we take for granted would not be with us today and biomaterials would be a different and, most likely, intellectually poorer, endeavor. We see creativity of the highest order in Allan Hoffman.
