Edward Joseph Hoffman (January 1, 1942 – July 1, 2004) helped invent the first human PET scanner, a commonly used whole-body scanning procedure for detecting diseases like cancer.
Hoffman, with Michel Ter-Pogossian and Michael E. Phelps, developed the Positron Emission Tomography scanner in 1973.
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.
[2] In 1999, he authored a book that reviews the biochemical basis of alternative medical treatments for cancer.
[3][4] He served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.