Dr. Solomon Snyder - 2019

“Messenger molecules of the mind”

Dr. Solomon H. Snyder

Johns Hopkins University, MD, USA

Dr. Solomon H. Snyder is the Distinguished Service Professor of Neuroscience, Pharmacology and Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the founder of the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience and served as its director from 1980 to 2006. Born in Washington, D.C. on December 26, 1938, Dr. Snyder received his undergraduate and medical training at Georgetown University (MD in 1962); Research Associate training with Julius Axelrod at the NIH (1963- 1965); and psychiatric training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1965-1968). In 1966 he joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Assistant Professor Pharmacology, 1966- 1968; Associate Professor Pharmacology/Psychiatry (1968-1970); Professor (1970). In 1980 he established the Department of Neuroscience and served as Director (1980-2006). He is presently Distinguished Service Professor of Neuroscience, Pharmacology and Psychiatry. Dr. Snyder is the recipient of numerous professional honors, including the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Biomedical Research (1978), the National Medal of Science (2005), the Albany Medical Prize (2007), the Warren Alpert Prize, Harvard University Prize (2014); Honorary Doctor of Science degrees from Northwestern University (1981), Georgetown University (1986), Ben Gurion University (1990), Albany Medical College (1998), Technion University of Israel (2002), Mount Sinai Medical School (2004), University of Maryland (2006), Charles University, Prague (2009), Johns Hopkins University (2018); the Wolf Foundation Prize in Medicine (1983), the Dickson Prize of the University of Pittsburgh (1983), the Bower Award of the Franklin Institute (1991), the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Neuroscience Research (1996), the Gerard Prize of the Society for Neuroscience (2000) and the Salk Institute Science Award (2016). He is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He is the author of more than 1000 journal articles and several books including Uses of Marijuana (1971), Madness and the Brain (1974), The Troubled Mind (1976), Drugs and the Brain (1986), and Brainstorming (1989). Many advances in molecular neuroscience have stemmed from Dr. Snyder's identification of receptors for neurotransmitters and drugs, and elucidation of the actions of psychotropic agents, making him one of the most highly cited biologists in the world. His 1973 Science publication describing the opiate receptor was a major advance in the field.