Joseph Goldstein M.D.

University of Texas

Dr. Goldstein is Chairman of the Department of Molecular Genetics at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Regental Professor of the University of Texas. Dr. Goldstein also holds the Paul J. Thomas Chair in Medicine and the Julie and Louis A. Beecherl Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science. Dr. Goldstein and his colleague, Michael S. Brown, discovered the low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor and worked out how these receptors control cholesterol homeostasis. This work opened the field of receptor-mediated endocytosis, and helped lay the conceptual groundwork for development of drugs called statins that lower blood LDL-cholesterol and prevent heart attacks. Brown and Goldstein shared many awards for this work, including the Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research (1985), Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1985), and National Medal of Science (1988). They have also received the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research (2003) for their work on the role of the SREBP family. Dr. Goldstein is currently Chairman of the Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards Jury and is a member of the Boards of Trustees of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and The Rockefeller University. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Welch Foundation, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Scripps Research Institute, Van Andel Institute, and the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society.