Edward J. Hoffman

Who was Edward J. Hoffman?

Edward Joseph Hoffman helped invent the first human PET scanner, a commonly used whole-body scanning procedure for detecting diseases like cancer. Hoffman, with Michael Phelps, developed the Positron Emission Tomography scanner in 1973.

Hoffman was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He earned a BS chemistry from St. Louis University in 1963, his Ph.D. in Nuclear Chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis in 1970 and completed postgraduate work in nuclear chemistry 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, used to detect cancer, heart disease and other serious illnesses. In 1975, Phelps and Hoffman moved to the University of Pennsylvania.

Starting in 1976, Hoffman was a professor at UCLA medical school in the Departments of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology and Radiological Sciences. In 1999, he authored a book that reviews the biochemical basis of alternative medical treatments for cancer. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.