W. Virgil Brown, MD

Charles Howard Candler Professor of Internal Medicine
Director, Division of Arteriosclerosis and Lipid Metabolism
Emory University School of Medicine
Atlanta, Georgia
Chief of Medicine
Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center
Decatur, Georgia

W. Virgil Brown, MD received an undergraduate degree in physics and chemistry from Emory University and his doctorate of medicine from Yale University. After training in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins, he began his research career as a clinical associate at the National Heart and Lung Institute (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. While at the NIH, working with Drs. Donald Fredrickson and Robert Levy, he isolated and characterized for the first time, three of the nine proteins involved in the structure of the plasma lipoproteins. This group of so called "C" apolipoproteins proved to be very important in regulating the levels of the blood triglycerides and cholesterol.

After completing a fellowship in endocrinology and metabolism at Yale-New Haven Hospital, he joined the faculty at the University of California at San Diego. At that institution he was director of the Lipid Research Clinic and continued research on the function of the lipoproteins in carrying cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood. He and his collaborators helped define the role of the lipase enzymes in breaking down triglycerides so that they could be removed from the blood stream by the various organs of the body. His studies also helped understand how various dietary changes and medications alter the metabolism of the lipoproteins to correct high levels of cholesterol.

In 1978 he became professor of medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York where he was director of the Division of Arteriosclerosis and Metabolism. After serving as the president of a private foundation (the Medlantic Research Foundation in Washington) for four years, Dr. Brown returned to academia in July 1999 as the Charles Howard Candler professor of internal medicine and director of the Division of Arteriosclerosis and Lipid Metabolism at his alma mater, Emory University in Atlanta.
Dr. Brown is also the chief of Medicine at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Decatur, Georgia.

Over the years, Dr. Brown has been very committed to the American Heart Association, serving as a member of several research review committees, as chairman of the Nutrition Committee, as vice chairman for the Education and Community Program Committee. He served as AHA President 1991-1992.

Dr. Brown has received many awards in his career. In 1996 Dr. Brown received the Golden Heart Award, the highest honor given by the American Heart Association for service to its mission over a lifetime. The American College of Physicians has given him the Master Physicians Award in 1999 and the Fulton Heart Association honored him with the Bruce Logue for the lifetime contribution to medicine in 2000.