Michael S. Brown, MD and Joseph L. Goldstein, MD. 1985 Nobel laureates in medicine

Abstract

When Michael S. Brown, MD and Joseph L. Goldstein, MD first met as interns at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1966, they could hardly have imagined that their careers would continue to be intertwined some 30 years later. It was shortly following their arrival as clinical associates at the National Institutes of Health in 1968 that the pair developed an interest in abnormalities of cholesterol metabolism. Bolstered by epidemiologic data that showed elevated cholesterol levels in many patients with myocardial infarction, Brown and Goldstein, who relocated to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 1972, began a search for receptors important in cholesterol homeostasis. These studies, performed in their early stages while juggling clinical duties at Parkland Hospital, culminated in a series of scientific achievements which merited among other honors the Hazen Award in 1982, the Lasker Award in 1985, and the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1985. Today, as Regental Professors of the University of Texas, Brown and Goldstein head a laboratory group which continues to test the cutting edge of medical research. Although impressed with the pace of technological advances in biology, the declining role of clinically oriented physicians in biomedical research troubles the pair. Interviewed in their library in Dallas, Brown and Goldstein spoke about the complicated balance of science, medicine, and education necessary to produce another generation of successful investigators.