biology

Solomon H. Snyder

Solomon H. Snyder is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Solomon H. Snyder rather than just read about it. In short: Solomon Halbert Snyder (born December 26, 1938) is an American neuroscientist who has made wide-ranging contributions to neuropharmacology and neurochemistry. He studied at Georgetown University, and has conducted the majority of his research at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Key takeaways

Solomon H. Snyder belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Solomon H. Snyder to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Solomon H. Snyder from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Solomon Halbert Snyder (born December 26, 1938) is an American neuroscientist who has made wide-ranging contributions to neuropharmacology and neurochemistry. He studied at Georgetown University, and has conducted the majority of his research at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Many advances in molecular neuroscience have stemmed from Snyder's identification of receptors for neurotransmitters and drugs, and elucidation of the actions of psychotropic agents. He received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1978 for his research on the opioid receptor, and is one of the most highly cited researchers in the biological and biomedical sciences, with the highest h-index in those fields for the years 1983–2002, and then from 2007 to 2019.

Biography

Personal life Solomon Snyder was born on December 26, 1938, in Washington D.C. He is one of five children. Snyder and his wife Elaine, who died in 2016, have two daughters and three grandchildren. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Education and early career Snyder attended Georgetown University from 1955 to 1958 and received his M.D. degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1962. After a medical residency at the Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco, he served as a research associate from 1963 to 1965 at the National Institutes of Health, where he studied under Julius Axelrod. Snyder moved to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to complete his residency in psychiatry from 1965 to 1968. He was appointed to the faculty there in 1966 as Assistant Professor of Pharmacology. In 1968 he was promoted to associate professor of Pharmacology and Psychiatry and in 1970 to full professor in both departments. His laboratory is noted for the use of receptor binding studies to characterize the actions of neurotransmitters and psychoactive drugs. He is also known for his work identifying receptors for the major neurotransmitters in the brain, and in the process explaining the actions of psychoactive drugs, such as the blockade of dopamine receptors by antipsychotic medications. He has described novel neurotransmitters, such as the gases nitric oxide and carbon monoxide and the D-isomers of amino acids, including D-serine.

Later career Snyder was University Distinguished Service Professor of Neuroscience, Pharmacology, and Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In 1980, he founded the Department of Neuroscience, and served as its first director from 1980 to 2006. In 2006, the department was renamed as The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience in his honor. Snyder retired from Johns Hopkins in December 2022. Snyder is also the Director of Drug Discovery at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development in Baltimore, MD. In 1980, he served as the president of the Society for Neuroscience. He is also associate editor, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. He helped start the companies Nova Pharmaceuticals and Guilford Pharmaceuticals. He is listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as one of the 10 most-often cited biologists and he also has the highest h-index of any living biologist.

Awards Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1978): In 1973, he co-discovered the opioid receptor and later identified the existence of normally occurring opiate-like peptides in the brain. Wolf Prize (from the President of Israel) (1983) Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1986) Bower Award of the Franklin Institute (1992) National Medal of Science (2003) Perl-UNC Prize (2006) Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research (2007) NAS Award in the Neurosciences (2013) He is the recipient of nine honorary doctorates and has been elected to honorific societies including the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.

References

Further reading Johns Hopkins page Lieber Institute for Brain Development Biography of Solomon Snyder from the NIH Foundation Biography of Solomon Snyder from The National Academies Money for Brains "The History of Neuroscience, The Society for Neuroscience". www.sfn.org. Retrieved 2015-04-29. Snyder, Solomon. Science and Psychiatry: Groundbreaking Discoveries in Molecular Neuroscience. Kanigel, Robert. Apprentice to Genius.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Solomon H. Snyder

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Solomon H. Snyder claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Solomon H. Snyder before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Solomon H. Snyder ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Solomon H. Snyder

In research: Solomon H. Snyder appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Solomon H. Snyder in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Solomon H. Snyder is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1938 births, 21st-century American Jews, American neuroscientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Solomon H. Snyder outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Solomon H. Snyder in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Solomon H. Snyder means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Solomon H. Snyder out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Solomon H. Snyder in simple terms?

Why does Solomon H. Snyder matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Solomon H. Snyder?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Solomon H. Snyder.