Drahoslav Lím (September 30, 1925, in Czechoslovakia – 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 *Czech (surnam ...

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

. He invented

polyhydroxyethylmethacrylate Poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (pHEMA) is a polymer that forms a hydrogel in water. Poly (hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) hydrogel for intraocular lens (IOL) materials was synthesized by solution polymerization using 2- hydroxyethyl methac ...

, the synthetic material used for soft

contact lenses Contact lenses, or simply contacts, are thin lens (optics), lenses placed directly on the surface of the Human eye, eyes. Contact lenses are ocular prosthetic devices used by over 150 million people worldwide, and they can be worn to correct ...

(

hydrogel A hydrogel is a Phase (matter), biphasic material, a mixture of Porosity, porous and Permeation, permeable solids and at least 10% of water or other interstitial fluid. The solid phase is a water Solubility, insoluble three dimensional network ...

). 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 was 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 ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

, improving contact lenses materials and technology. When he returned to

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

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 hemodialyzer, 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 bio-artificial k ...

s and continued with research on

polymer A polymer () is a chemical substance, substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeat unit, repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their br ...

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.

References

External links

Biography (in Czech)
Czechoslovak chemists Czech chemists Czech inventors 2003 deaths 1925 births {{chemist-stub