Jony Kipnis

Dr. Jonathan (Jony) Kipnis is BJC Investigator, Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Immunology and Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Neurosurgery at Washington University in St. Louis, School of Medicine. He is also the inaugural Director of Center for Brain immunology and Glia (BIG) at Washington University. Jony graduated from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, where he was a Sir Charles Clore scholar and a recipient of distinguished prize for scientific achievements awarded by the Israeli Parliament, The Knesset.

Kipnis lab focuses on the complex interactions between the immune system and the central nervous system (CNS). The goal is to elucidate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying these interactions in neurodegenerative, neurodevelopmental, and mental disorders as well as in physiology (including healthy aging). They showed that the brain function is dependent, in part, on the function and integrity of the immune system and that immune molecules (cytokines) can play neuromodulatory roles. Recently Kipnis lab has also identified the skull and vertebrae bone marrow niches as local immune reservoirs for the brain and the spinal cord, whose role in neurological disorders is yet unknown.

Dr. Kipnis is a member of National Academy of Medicine and among other awards, he is a recipient NIH Director’s Pioneer award for 2018 to explore in more depth neuro-immune interactions in healthy and diseased brain and National Institute on Aging MERIT award to study the role of meningeal immunity and lymphatics in aging and Alzheimer’s disease.