Michael S. Brown

He married Alice Lapin, a childhood friend, in 1964. The couple has two daughters.

Michael Stuart Brown was born on April 13, 1941, in Brooklyn, New York, USA. His father, Harvey Brown, was a textile salesman while his mother, Evelyn, was a housewife.

He attended Cheltenham High School, where he became interested in both science and journalism. As a 13 year old he obtained an amateur radio operating license.

He went to the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a degree in chemistry in 1962. During his time at the college he served as the features editor and briefly as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper ‘The Daily Pennsylvanian.’

He proceeded to study medicine from the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine and received his MD in 1966. He served his internship at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, where he met another intern, Joseph L. Goldstein who became his friend.

In 1968, Brown moved to the National Institutes of Health as a Clinical Associate in gastroenterology and hereditary disease. There he performed research on gastroenterology, hereditary disease and metabolic regulation before joining the Laboratory of Biochemistry, headed by Earl R. Stadtman.

He moved to the division of Gastroenterology in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas in 1971. His friend Goldstein joined him the following year.

Brown successfully solubilized and partially purified 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase, an enzyme that catalyzes the rate-controlling enzyme in cholesterol biosynthesis.

His formal collaboration with Goldstein began in 1972. Initially the young scientists maintained separate laboratories and combined the laboratories in 1974. Their scientific collaboration would soon lead to several significant medical discoveries.

Throughout the 1970s Brown and Goldstein conducted research on the genetic factors responsible for high levels of cholesterol in the bloodstream. Their research led to the discovery that human cells have low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors that extract cholesterol from the bloodstream.

Michael S. Brown in collaboration with Joseph L. Goldstein performed important work on the metabolism of cholesterol in the human body. Over the course of their research they discovered genetic markers and later helped in the development of statin drugs with cholesterol-lowering compounds.