Joseph L Goldstein

Chairman, Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Texas

Joseph L Goldstein is Chairman of the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Chairman of the Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards Jury and a member of the Boards of Trustees of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and The Rockefeller University.

Joe and his colleague, Michael S. Brown, discovered the low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor and worked out how these receptors control cholesterol homeostasis.  At the basic level, this work opened the field of receptor-mediated endocytosis, and at the clinical level it helped lay the conceptual groundwork for the development of drugs called statins that lower blood LDL-cholesterol and prevent heart attacks. Drs. Goldstein and Brown shared many awards for this work, including the Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research (1985), the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1985), and the National Medal of Science (1988). They also received the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research (2003) for more recent work on the SREBP family of transcription factors.

In addition to his academic activities, Joe is a member of the Board of Directors of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and the Scientific Advisory Boards of Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, and Five Prime.