David Morris Kipnis (May 23, 1927 – February 5, 2014) was an American endocrinologist and medical researcher at

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

. He discovered the "

incretin Incretins are a group of metabolic hormones that stimulate a decrease in blood glucose levels. Incretins are released after eating and augment the secretion of insulin released from pancreatic beta cells of the islets of Langerhans by a blood-gl ...

effect".

Life and career

Kipnis was born in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

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 Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...

's medical bag on house calls. After graduating from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

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 The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

in 1950. Following an internship at

Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...

, residency at

Duke University Hospital Duke University Hospital is a 957-acute care bed academic tertiary care facility located in Durham, North Carolina. Established in 1930, it is the flagship teaching hospital for the Duke University Health System, a network of physicians and hosp ...

, and a chief resident position at the University of Maryland Medical Center, he moved to

, 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 Carl Ferdinand Cori, ForMemRS (December 5, 1896 – October 20, 1984) was an Austrian-American biochemist and pharmacologist born in Prague (then in Austria-Hungary, now Czech Republic) who, together with his wife Gerty Cori and Argentine physio ...

. He founded Washington University's Clinical Research Center in 1960 and was its director until 1987. He became a full professor in 1965 and was made head of the Department of Medicine in 1973. During the 1980s, he forged a deal with Monsanto to collaborate on medical research with Monsanto providing US$100 million in funding over two decades. He was also physician-in-chief at Barnes Hospital. Kipnis's own research focused on

diabetes Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ap ...

and

metabolism Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cell ...

. He discovered the "

effect"—demonstrating that consuming sugar and other carbohydrates by mouth leads the gut to release hormones that promote the release of

insulin Insulin (, from Latin ''insula'', 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the ''INS'' gene. It is considered to be the main anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabolism o ...

—which was the foundation for a new class of drugs to treat diabetes. He also studied the regulation of insulin release by the pancreas and the transport mechanisms of glucose and

amino acid Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha am ...

s in the body.

Honors

The

American Diabetes Association The American Diabetes Association (ADA) is a United States-based nonprofit that seeks to educate the public about diabetes and to help those affected by it through funding research to manage, cure and prevent diabetes (including type 1 diabetes, ...

awarded Kipnis its

Banting Medal The Banting Medal, officially the Banting Medal for Scientific Achievement, is an annual award conferred by the American Diabetes Association (ADA), which is the highest award of ADA. Inaugurated in 1941, the prize is given in memory of Sir Frederic ...

in 1977 and the Association of American Physicians awarded him its

George M. Kober Medal The Association of American Physicians (AAP) is an honorary medical society founded in 1885 by the Canadian physician Sir William Osler and six other distinguished physicians of his era for "the advancement of scientific and practical medicine." ...

in 1994. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 1974, the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1974, and the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

in 1981.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kipnis, David 1927 births 2014 deaths American endocrinologists American medical researchers Washington University School of Medicine faculty Johns Hopkins University alumni University System of Maryland alumni Members of the National Academy of Medicine Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences