Goldstein, Joseph Leonard (1940-…), is an American physician and medical researcher who made important discoveries about a fatty substance called cholesterol. Goldstein and his colleague Michael S. Brown revolutionized scientific understanding of how cholesterol can accumulate in arteries, increasing the risk of strokes or heart attacks. For their discoveries, the two scientists shared the 1985 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.
In 1973, Goldstein and Brown discovered that the amount of cholesterol in the human body is controlled by molecules called LDL-receptors on the surface of cells. These receptors trap and absorb fatty particles from the bloodstream known as low-density lipoproteins (LDL’s). The two scientists showed that a diet rich in cholesterol lowers the number of these receptors and thereby increases a person’s risk of heart disease. A low-cholesterol diet, on the other hand, raises the number of LDL-receptors and helps prevent heart disease. They also discovered that some people inherit a low number of LDL-receptors and are therefore more prone to heart disease. This inherited disorder is known as familial hypercholesterolemia.
Goldstein was born in Sumter, South Carolina. After graduating from Washington and Lee University, he received his M.D. degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in 1966. From 1966 to 1968, he served his internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where he met Brown.
After his residency, Goldstein did research at the National Heart Institute and the University of Washington, focusing on genetic factors that increased people’s risk of heart disease. He returned to the University of Texas in 1972, joining Brown in his cholesterol research at the Southwestern Medical Center there. Goldstein became professor and chairman of the Department of Molecular Genetics in 1977. He is coauthor of The Metabolic Basis of Inherited Disease (1983).
