POLY(ETHYLENE OXIDE) STAR MOLECULES - SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION, AND APPLICATIONS IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY

It was an honor to be invited to honor Allan Hoffman on the occasion o f his 60th birthday. It seems like yesterday that Allan and I shared a n office in old Building 12 on the M.I.T. campus. At that time Allan h ad lost a bout with a snow covered mountain while on skis, and consequ ently moved about awkwardly in our already small room on crutches with a heavy cast. Despite these impediments, he carried on his classroom activities with typical energy. It was even earlier that at M.I.T., un der the supervision of Ed Gilliland and myself, he carried out his doc toral research on the radiation grafting of styrene to polyethylene. B oth he and I have dabbled in radiation chemistry on and off since then -he far more than I. Neither of us at that epoch had much idea about b iomaterials or medical applications of materials-at least I did not-pe rhaps Allan had it in the back of his mind. The University of Washingt on, Seattle, is recognized as one of the great centers of biomedical e ngineering in the world, both in scope and in depth, and Allan has pla yed a stellar role in the evolution of Seattle's reputation. He has al so developed a reputation for outstanding work in biomaterials and is one of the most visible and internationally recognized leaders in the field.