Gofman, a nuclear and physical chemist as well as a physician, has been called the "father of clinical lipidology." He discovered and described the major classes of plasma lipoproteins: intermediate-density lipoproteins (IDL), low-density (LDL) and high-density lipoproteins (HDL), as well as VLD (very low density lipoprotein). He characterized LDL as carrier of "bad cholesterol" leading to atherosclerosis; however he did not find that higher levels of HDL have predictive value as "good cholesterol".  He drew attention to VLDL as risk factor, noting that diabetics are frequently marked by higher VLDL levels, and also noted the rise in atherogenic lipoproteins at much earlier age in men than women. This is a long review of research conducted by Gofman and his team from 1949 to 1955; it footnotes 31 previously published papers by Gofman and associates. With O. DeLalla, F. Glazier, M.K. Freeman, A.V. Nicholas, B. Strisower, and A. R. Tamplin. This paper was reprinted with an historical introduction by Richard J. Havel, in Journal of Clinical Lipidology I (2007) 104-141.

This paper, delivered at the 1969 Nuclear Science Symposium and Nuclear Power Systems Engineering Symposium, October, 1969, provided powerful scientific evidence that the then currently allowable radiation dose (Federal Radiation Council Guidelines) of 0.17 Rads per year from peaceful development of atomic energy should be reduced downward by a factor of 10, to a dose of less than 0.017 Rads per year for the allowable population exposure to ionizing radiation. Gofman and Tamplin argued that if everyone in the U.S. received 0.17 Rads per year, as the Atomic Energy Commission then planned to allow, that would lead to a minimum estimate of 16,000 additional cancer plus leukemia cases annually in the U.S.

The paper also enunciated 3 " general laws of radiation-induction of cancer in man" Over time these laws became widely accepted.

"Law I All forms of cancer, in all proability, can be increased by ionizing radiation, and the correct way to describe the phenomena is either in terms of the dose required to double the sponaneous incidence rate of each cancer or, alternatively, as the increase in incidence rate of each cancers per Rad of exposure.

"Law II  All forms of cancer show closely similar doubling doses and closely similar increases in incidence rate per Rad.

"Law III Youthful subjects require less radiation to increase the incidence rate by a specified faction than to adults."

Gofman and Tamplin published about 15 papers on these issues within a year. A less technical paper on the subject was "Radiation, cancer, and environmental health," Hospital Practice, 5, 91- 110. The two papers specifically cited here, and others by Gofman and Tamplin were influential in preventing an enormous growth in the number of nuclear reactors in the U.S. that the Atomic Energy Commission was then proposing: 1000 to 2000 nuclear reactors in the United States. Gofman was then director of the Division of Medical Physics (Berkeley) and director of the Bio-Medical Research Division at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

The first comprehensive book summarizing the evidence relating low-level ionizing radiation to cancer and other diseases.