Drs. Carl and Gerty Cori. In 1947, Gerty Cori became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in science.  She and her husband Carl, also a faculty member at WU, received the prestigious award for their work on carbohydrate metabolism.

The long and rich tradition in endocrine-metabolic research at Washington University School of Medicine can be traced to the Nobel Prize-winning work of the late Drs. Carl and Gerty Cori.

Among their many trainees who rose to leadership positions in endocrine-metabolic research were Drs. William H. Daughaday and David M. Kipnis, who molded and led the Metabolism Division, now known as the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Lipid Research to prominence in the 1950s-1970s. That tradition continues. The current endocrine-metabolic faculty is large (numbering about 50 in the departments of Medicine and Pediatrics alone). Their research and clinical interests are diverse, providing opportunities for broadly based training.