Joseph Leonard Goldstein, the only son of Isadore E. and Fannie (Albert) Goldstein, was born on April 18, 1940, in Sumter, South Carolina. He graduated from Washington & Lee University in 1962 with a B.S. degree in chemistry, and attended Southwestern Medical School of the University of Texas Health Science Center in Dallas. There, Donald Seldin, chairman of the Health Science Center's department of internal medicine, offered him a future faculty appointment, provided he would specialize in genetics and then return to Dallas to establish a division of medical genetics there. He received his M.D. degree in 1966.

Goldstein's internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital brought him to Michael Brown, who had arrived from the University of Pennsylvania, having also obtained his M.D. degree in 1966. The two served in the same internship and residency program, and both were interested in research. After finishing their training in 1968, they joined the...