Lipmann was educated, during the years 1917-1922, at the Universities of Koenigsberg, Berlin, and Munich, where he studied medicine.
In 1930 Lipmann went back to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin to work as a research assistant in the laboratory of Albert Fischer, who was interested in applying biochemical methods to tissue culture.
Lipmann is a member of several learned societies in the U.S.A., the Faraday Society, and the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences and is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of England.