Michael S. Brown, a genetics professor and director of the Center for Genetic Diseases at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, is one of America's foremost experts on cholesterol metabolism in the human body. In the 1970s, Brown and Joseph Goldstein investigated familial hypercholesterolemia, a dangerous inherited disorder which causes elevated levels of cholesterol in the blood. Their research led them to the discovery of a protein in the membranes of a cell, called the LDL receptor, which plays a central role in the body's ability to lower cholesterol levels. For this discovery and their subsequent research on the LDL receptor, Brown and Goldstein shared the 1985 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

Brown was born in New York City on April 13, 1941, to Harvey and Evelyn Katz Brown. He attended the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1962. Following his graduation, Brown enrolled in...