Joseph L. Goldstein

Joseph L. Goldstein (born April 18, 1940) from Kingstree, South Carolina is a Nobel Prize winning biochemist and geneticist, and a pioneer in the study of cholesterol metabolism.

Biography

Dr. Goldstein received a BS in chemistry from Washington and Lee University in 1962 and his M.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 1966. In 1985 he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (together with Michael S. Brown) for his research on the metabolism of low density lipoprotein (LDL), and has won numerous other awards for his contributions related to genetic diseases.

Returning to the University of Texas Health Science Center in Dallas in 1972 (now called UT Southwestern Medical Center) Goldstein and his close colleague Brown researched cholesterol metabolism and discovered that human cells have low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors that extract cholesterol from the bloodstream. The lack of sufficient LDL receptors is the cause of familial hypercholesterolemia, which predisposes heavily for cholesterol-related diseases. In addition to explaining the underlying pathology of the widely-observed link between high levels of circulating cholesterol as LDL and coronary artery disease, their work uncovered a previously-unappreciated fundamental aspect of cell biology - Receptor-mediated endocytosis.

Goldstein and Brown's findings led to better understanding the mechanism of action...
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