John Gofman

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". 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, he was the first chemist ever to try and isolate milligram quantities of plutonium.

In 1963 Gofman established the Biomedical Research Division for the Livermore National Laboratory, where he researched the connection between chromosomal abnormalities and cancer.

Later in life, Gofman became an anti-nuclear advocate. Beginning in 1971, he was Chairman of the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "his pioneering work in exposing the health effects of low-level radiation" on the Chernobyl disaster's area population.

In his 1996 book 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.

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.

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.

Gofman later became the group co-leader of the Plutonium Project, an offshoot of the Manhattan Project.

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.

Establishment of LLNL's Medical Department

At the request of Ernest Lawrence, Gofman established the Medical Department at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in early 1954 and acted as the medical director until 1957.