In celebration of Allan Hoffman's 70th birthday, a symposium entitled Gels, Genes, Grafts and Giants was held in Maui in December 2002. This symposium, organized by The University of Washington Engineered Biomaterials (UWEB) NSF Engineering Research Center, was a great success, with many excellent papers presented by scientists from all over the world. All those who made oral or poster presentations at the symposium, but also those who worked with Allan Hoffman in the past or worked in similar research areas were invited to submit articles for special issues of the Journal of Biomaterials Science, Polymer Edition . The papers from these special issues of the journal have now been published in one hardcover book.