John William Gofman (21 September 1918 – 15 August 2007) was an American scientist and advocate. He was Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley.
Gofman pioneered the field of clinical lipidology, and in 2007 was honored by the Journal of Clinical Lipidology with the title of "Father of Clinical Lipidology".[2] With Frank T. Lindgren and other research associates, Gofman discovered and described three major classes of plasma lipoproteins, fat molecules that carry cholesterol in the blood. The team he led at the Donner Laboratory went on to demonstrate the role of lipoproteins in the causation of heart disease.
Gofman advocated for the adoption of the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model as a means of estimating actual cancer risks from low-level radiation and as the foundation of the international guidelines for radiation protection.
Gofman's earliest research was in nuclear physics and chemistry, in close connection with the Manhattan Project. He codiscovered several radioisotopes, notably uranium-233 and its fissionability; he was the third person ever to work with plutonium and, having devised an early process for separating plutonium from fission products at J. Robert Oppenheimer's request,[3] he was the first chemist ever to try and isolate milligram quantities of plutonium.[4]
In his 1996 book[6] Gofman claimed that exposure to medical x-rays was responsible for about 75 percent of breast cancers in the United States. This order of magnitude has been somehow confirmed by the increase in breast cancer incidence following mammography screening in the USA and in France.[7]
Research
John Gofman graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor's in chemistry in 1939, and received a doctorate in nuclear and physical chemistry from Berkeley in 1943, where he worked as a graduate student under Glenn T. Seaborg. In his PhD dissertation, Gofman described the discovery of radioisotopes protactinium-232, uranium-232, protactinium-233, as well as uranium-233 and the characterization of its fissionability.[1]
Gofman shared three patents with collaborators on their discoveries :
n° 3,123,535 (Glenn T. Seaborg, John W. Gofman, Raymond W. Stoughton): The slow and fast neutron fissionability of uranium-233, with its application to production of nuclear power or nuclear weapons.
n° 2,671,251 (John W. Gofman, Robert E. Connick, Arthur C. Wahl): The sodium uranyl acetate process for the separation of plutonium in irradiated fuel from uranium and fission products.
n° 2,912,302 (Robert E. Connick, John W. Gofman, George C. Pimentel): The columbium oxide process for the separation of plutonium in irradiated fuel from uranium and fission products.[8]
Gofman later became the group co-leader of the Plutonium Project, an offshoot of the Manhattan Project.[9]
Dr. Gofman earned his medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco, in 1946. After that, he and his collaborators investigated the body's lipoproteins, which contain both proteins and fats, and their circulation within the bloodstream. The researchers described low-density and high-density lipoproteins and their roles in metabolic disorders and coronary disease. This work continued throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s.[9]
Gofman retired as a teaching professor in 1973 and became a professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology.
Gofman used his low-level radiation health model to predict 333 excess cancer or leukemia deaths from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.[11]
Three months after the Chernobyl disaster, Gofman predicted that Chernobyl would cause "475,000 fatal cancers plus about
an equal number of additional non-fatal cases, occurring over time both inside and outside the ex-Soviet Union".[12]
Birth and death
Gofman was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Jewish parents, David and Sarah Gofman, who immigrated to the US from the Russian Empire in about 1905.[13] His father had been "involved in some of the early revolutionary activities against the Czar."[14] Gofman died of heart failure at age 88 on August 15, 2007, in his home in San Francisco.[15]
Gold-Headed Cane Award, University of California Medical School, 1946, presented to the graduating senior who most fully personifies the qualities of a "true physician."
Modern Medicine Award, 1954, for outstanding contributions to heart disease research.
The Lyman Duff Lectureship Award of the American Heart Association in 1965, for research in atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease; lecture published in 1966 as "Ischemic Heart Disease, Atherosclerosis, and Longevity," in Circulation 34: 679–697.
The Stouffer Prize (shared) 1972, for outstanding contributions to research in arteriosclerosis.
American College of Cardiology, 1974; selection as one of twenty-five leading researchers in cardiology of the past quarter-century.
University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library, 1988; announcement of the "Gofman Papers" established in the History of Science and Technology Special Collection (October 1988, Bancroftiana, No. 97: 10–11).
^Alexander V. Nichols, Robert M. Glaeser, Howard C. Mel, "In Memoriam - John Gofman". Archived from the original on 2015-04-07. Retrieved 2015-04-03., University of California
^"Curriculum Vitae of Dr. John W. Gofman"., in "Preventing Breast Cancer: The Story of a Major, Proven, Preventable Cause of this Disease", 2nd edition, 1996, p 379-381
^John W. Gofman with Egan O'Connor, Radiation from Medical Procedures in the Pathogenesis of Cancer and Ischemic Heart Disease: Dose-Response Studies with Physicians per 100,000 Population, "The Author's History"., Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, 1999
