Drahoslav Lím (born September 30, 1925 in Czechoslovakia; died August 22, 2003 in San Diego, California) was a
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...
. He invented
polyhydroxyethylmethacrylate, the
synthetic material used for soft
contact lenses
Contact lenses, or simply contacts, are thin lenses placed directly on the surface of the eyes. Contact lenses are ocular prosthetic devices used by over 150 million people worldwide, and they can be worn to correct vision or for cosmetic ...
(
hydrogel
A hydrogel is a crosslinked hydrophilic polymer that does not dissolve in water. They are highly absorbent yet maintain well defined structures. These properties underpin several applications, especially in the biomedical area. Many hydrogels ar ...
).
Lím worked as a member of the team of
Otto Wichterle
Otto Wichterle (; 27 October 1913 – 18 August 1998) was a Czech chemist, best known for his invention of modern soft contact lenses.
Wichterle is the author or co-author of approximately 180 patents and over 200 publications. The studie ...
(the inventor of soft contact lenses) and in 1955, he came up with poly(hydroethyl-acrylate), the material later used for the lenses. This work was later published in Nature
[ and was the subject of US patents.][Otto Wichterle and Drahoslav Lim, "Cross-linked hydrophilic polymers and articles made therefrom", US Patent 3,220,960, November 30, 1965] During 1970 to 1974 he worked in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...
, improving contact lenses materials and technology. When he returned to Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
he was persecuted for political reasons and was not allowed to work in his specialisation. In 1979, he was allowed to emigrate to the United States. There Lím worked on materials for artificial kidney
Artificial kidney is often a synonym for hemodialysis, but may also refer to the other renal replacement therapies (with exclusion of kidney transplantation) that are in use and/or in development. This article deals mainly with bioengineered kid ...
s and continued with research on polymer
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part")
is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...
s. He was both a professor at the University of California, San Diego and the de facto founder of the Revlon Materials Research Center. At the latter he led a team of scientists who researched tinting technologies for hydrogel contact lenses, materials for intraocular lenses, and formulations for nail enamel. He was awarded over 150 patents.
Although the academic community recognises the importance of his inventions, the Czech public almost never hears his name.
References
External links
Biography (in Czech)
Czech chemists
Czech inventors
2003 deaths
1925 births
{{chemist-stub