Gustav Schonfeld, MD

Biography

Gustav Schonfeld, M.D., the Samuel E. Schechter Professor, led the Division of Atherosclerosis, Nutrition and Lipid Research at Washington University from 1972 through 2002. Dr. Schonfeld earned a BA, (1956) and MD (1960) from Washington University. After residency in Internal Medicine at New York University, he returned to Washington University in 1963 as chief resident at Jewish Hospital. He subsequently served as a fellow in endocrinology and metabolism at Barnes Hospital. Dr. Schonfeld spent two years as a research flight medical officer with the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine and two years at MIT as associate professor of nutrition. He then joined the School of Medicine faculty in 1972 as associate professor of Preventive Medicine and of Internal Medicine and director of the Lipid Research division, becoming a full professor in 1977. After serving as acting chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine for three years, he was named the Kountz Professor of Medicine in 1987. From 1996 to 1999, he served as Adolphus Busch Professor, chair of the Department of Internal Medicine, and physicianÐin-chief at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. He became the Samuel E. Schechter Professor of Medicine in 2001. Dr. Schonfeld is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. In 1995, he received an Alumni/Faculty Award from the Washington University Medical Center Alumni Association and in 2006 a Special Award of the American Heart Association. He presented the George Lyman Duff Lecture at the American Heart Association in November of 2006.

Research Interests

Internationally known for his research on heart disease prevention and cholesterol and for his expertise on lipid metabolism, Dr. Schonfeld has performed many dietary and drug studies in patients with various forms of dyslipidemia. He has used immunologic techniques to study the structures and functions of apolipoproteins. Currently he employs modern genetic and metabolic techniques to examine the low-cholesterol syndromes in humans and in engineered and congenic mice.

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