David M. Kipnis Oral History

David M. Kipnis earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Johns Hopkins and, in 1950, a medical degree from the University of Maryland. He completed an internship at Johns Hopkins, a residency at Duke, and served as chief resident at the University of Maryland before coming to Washington University as an American College of Physicians research fellow.

Kipnis came to Washington University in 1955 as a research fellow in the laboratory of Nobel laureates Carl F. Cori, MD, and Gerty T. Cori, MD. He directed the university's Clinical Research Center from 1960-1987, became a full professor of medicine in 1965, and in 1973, he was named the Adolphus Busch Professor and head of the Department of Medicine, a position he held until 1992.

Among his many accomplishments as head of medicine, Kipnis oversaw construction of the School of Medicine's Clinical Sciences Research Building, which opened in 1981, and added about 75,000 square feet of laboratory space for researchers in the Department of Medicine. Kipnis also held appointments as professor of molecular biology and pharmacology at Washington University. His involvement in basic and clinical research helped establish critical links between fundamental research and innovative patient care. The research and training collaborations he established between the Department of Medicine and the school's basic-science departments became models for clinical departments at medical schools nationwide.

During his tenure, the number of full-time faculty in the Department of Medicine at Washington University increased from 46 to 160, the operating budget rose from $4.5 million to $110 million, and the department's research funding made up one-quarter of the university's total research budget. Kipnis also was the driving force behind the Washington University and Monsanto biomedical research agreement, an extensive and significant corporate/university collaboration, that was one of the first partnerships of its kind in the United States. The agreement provided more than $100 million in research support to university scientists.

Kipnis dedicated his research and clinical practice to diabetes and endocrinology, focusing on insulin's action. He helped delineate the mechanisms of sugar and amino acid transport, the regulation of insulin release within the pancreas and the molecular mechanisms underlying the metabolic effects of various hormones. Kipnis worked with the late Paul E. Lacy, MD, PhD, and William H. Daughaday, MD, to establish a diabetes and endocrinology research center at Washington University in 1974, an effort that led to the formation of the university's Diabetes Research and Training Center in 1977. More than three decades later, the center remains an integral part of a national research effort to prevent diabetes and treat its complications.