Du Vigneaud was born in Chicago, Illinois. He studied chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and then worked for the chemical company DuPont for one year. He then went back to university to study for his Ph.D degree. He received his Ph.D in 1927. He taught for one year at the medical school of Johns Hopkins University and then went to Europe. He did research in Dresden in Germany and at the medical school of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. When he went back to America, he became a professor at the University of Illinois. In 1932 he moved to the George Washington University Medical School. In 1938 he moved to Cornell University Medical College in New York City. He was a professor at Cornell until he retired in 1967. 