Kipling is a Non-Clinical scientist, originally trained as a Zoologist at Cambridge University before doing a DPhil in the Zoology Department at Oxford University on DNA replication in yeast. He then moved to the MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh where he worked as a postdoctoral lab scientist on various aspects of chromosome biology, especially telomeres and centromeres. He moved to Cardiff to study the role of telomeres in cell division counting, as relevant to both ageing and cancer.

Kipling is very active at a strategic level in the UK with regard to ageing research, in particular with BBSRC, the Babraham Institute, and the British Society for Research on Ageing. His own career has been via the route of gaining personal Fellowship awards (Beit and then Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine) and he have keen interest in issues surrounding career structure and progression in biomedical research, including the competing demands of research and teaching/clinical practice.