Dr. William P. Castelli, world-renowned cardiologist and former director of the Framingham Heart Study passed away on January 19, 2025 at age 91

MLO contributor, Robert F. Moran, PhD, FCCM, FAACC, FIUPAC, FAIC, shared that his friend and mentor, Dr. William Castelli recently passed away.

“In 1967, Dr. Castelli was Director of Laboratories at the Framingham Heart Study when I first arrived there taking on the position of Supervisory Chemist. He soon became more than a boss but a real mentor — to all of us in the lab. While a cardiologist by training and practice, Dr. Castelli was a researcher and very lab-oriented — participating in developing new tests and making new discoveries, clinically important ones — In the Lab!

One example of that would be what is now known as HDL cholesterol. In the late 1960’s we (the Heart Study) were starting to run lipoprotein electrophoresis on all specimens from the study participants. Early in the process, we were looking at a run of 16 specimens and the proverbial lightbulb came on — all the specimens from the women had a strong band of lipoprotein in the same position and all the men had a much weaker band. ‘Hey Bob, we need to look into this more deeply.’ Soon afterward, we began to run the specimens overnight on the ultracentrifuge at a controlled density. Electrophoresis and cholesterol measurements on the resultant segments showed that the strong band found in specimens from women had higher amounts of cholesterol and were in the densest part of the ultracentrifuge separated segments.

More stories surround just this one set of observations, but I won’t go on — the key message is that Dr. Castelli — in addition to all his well-known accomplishments was a real ‘Lab Guy.’ Much more important than all that, though, was Bill Castelli the man, the husband, the father, the catechism teacher, the friend, and mentor.”

Dr. Castelli’s wife, Marjorie, said her husband, “was a man on a mission to save the world from heart disease.” Dr. Castelli’s obituary can be viewed at William P. Castelli - CR Lyons & Sons Funeral Directors.