IN MEMORIAM

Edward J. Hoffman

Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology

Los Angeles

1942—2004

Edward J. Hoffman, co-inventor of the widely used Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner, died July 1, 2004 at age 62 with his wife of 33 years, Carolyn, by his side.

 

Hoffman, a professor in the Departments of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology and Radiological Sciences in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, was also known for his strong leadership as program director of the Biomedical Physics Interdepartmental Graduate Program. Additionally, he was president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society, chief editor of the IEEE-NMIS Journal, and a member of the UCLA Graduate Council.

 

“Ed was a wonderful scientist with a great mind and a good heart,” said Michael Phelps, chairman of the department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology. “He was devoted to the many students that learned to do science in his lab and have themselves gone out in the world to create their own successes, never forgetting the precious present given to them by Ed.”

 

Hoffman was born in 1942 in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Bishop DuBourg High School. He earned his bachelor of science degree in chemistry from St. Louis University in 1963, and his Ph.D. in Nuclear Chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis in 1970. He completed his postgraduate work in nuclear chemistry at the Benjamin Franklin Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1972 he joined the faculty of Washington University’s School of Medicine, where he and Dr. Michael Phelps began developing what later became known as the PET scanner. Subsequently, Phelps and Hoffman moved to the University of Pennsylvania.

 

In 1976 they came to the UCLA School of Medicine with a close-knit group of researchers. They joined the Department of Radiological Sciences and the Laboratory of Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Biology.

 

In his years at UCLA, Hoffman achieved international recognition in the science field of medical imaging. He received many awards over the years, most recently the 2002 IEEE Medical Imaging Scientist Award. He was a member of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, a charter member of the IEEE/Medical Imaging Society, and a member of the Scientific and Medical Advisory Board of Gamma-Medica Inc.

 

Ed devoted his life to the Biomedical Physics graduate program at UCLA. He was the program’s passionate leader of its faculty, students and staff, as well as its defender before and after becoming the program director. In the later part of Ed’s career, the Biomedical Physics graduate program became the most important part of his academic life. It also became an intimate part of Carolyn’s life as she opened her home and her heart to the faculty and students to help Ed with the program in a personal way.

 

Ed had academic colleagues all over the world that he engaged in science and in the leadership role he assumed in the imaging portion of the IEEE society. Much like his efforts to build, lead and defend the Biomedical Physics graduate program here at UCLA, he did the same in an international context for imaging in IEEE. Of all Ed’s colleagues, none will miss him, and value what he was and what he accomplished, more than those here at UCLA.