Joseph L. Goldstein received the 1985 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology for the discovery of the receptor molecule, a structure on cell surfaces that regulates cholesterol levels in blood. Goldstein and colleague Michael Brown worked for fifteen years before finding the molecule, which shed light on the correlation between blood cholesterol level and heart disease. The National Institutes of Health, in part because of Goldstein's and Brown's work, recommended lowering fat intake in the diet of United States citizens.

Goldstein is professor of medicine and genetics and chairman of the department of molecular genetics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas. Brown is director of the Center for Genetic Disease. Colleagues there humorously refer to them collectively as "Brownstein," and together they have received awards from the National Academy of Sciences, the American Chemical Society, the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, the American Heart Association...