David Kipnis

David Morris Kipnis (May 23, 1927 – February 5, 2014) was an American endocrinologist and medical researcher at Washington University in St. Louis. He discovered the "incretin effect".

Life and career Kipnis was born in Baltimore in 1927; his parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe. He first became interested in medicine as a young child when he would carry his local pediatrician's medical bag on house calls. After graduating from Johns Hopkins University at the age of 18, he was considered too young to enroll in medical school, so he joined the U.S. Army at Fort Leonard Wood before returning to Maryland. He completed his medical degree at the University of Maryland in 1950.

Following an internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, residency at Duke University Hospital, and a chief resident position at the University of Maryland Medical Center, he moved to Washington University in St. Louis, where he would spend the remainder of his career. His first position at the university in 1955 was a research fellow with Nobel laureates Gerty Cori and Carl Ferdinand Cori. He founded Washington University's Clinical Research Center