GRAND RAPIDS – Van Andel Research Institute announced Wednesday that Nobel Laureate Michael S. Brown, M.D., will give a special scientific seminar Oct. 27 called A Century of Cholesterol and Coronaries at the Institute.
Brown was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1985 along with his colleague, Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein, for their discovery of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor, which controls the level of cholesterol in the blood. They also showed that mutations in this receptor cause familial hypercholesterolemia, a condition marked by premature heart attacks. Notably, Brown and Goldstein?s work laid the foundation for the development of statins, a group of drugs that are taken daily by more than 20 million people across the world to lower cholesterol and help prevent heart attacks.
Brown earned his M.D. in 1966 from the University of Pennsylvania. He currently is the Director of the Jonsson Center for Molecular Genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He also is the chairman of Van Andel Institute?s Board of Scientific Advisors.
Brown will speak at 3 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 27 in Van Andel Institute?s Tomatis Auditorium. The seminar is free and open to the public.
