Solomon H. Snyder
Dr. Solomon H. Snyder (born December 26, 1938) is an American neuroscientist.
Snyder graduated from Georgetown University in 1958 and Georgetown Medical School in 1962. At a very early age he published his research on ornithine decarboxylase and RNA synthesis which opened up countless vistas in the neurosciences. After a two-year fellowship at the NIH, Snyder moved to Johns Hopkins Medical School to complete his residency in psychiatry.
He studied under Julius Axelrod and in 1973 discovered the opioid receptor and later endorphins. For this work he was awarded the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1978. He also received the AMA Scientific Achievement Award in 1985, the National Medal of Science in 2003 and the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research (2007).
He is also known for his work describing the role of nitric oxide as a neurotransmitter.
Presently he is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Neurosciences, and Pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is also Senior Editor, PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America).
He is listed by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) as one of the 10 most-often cited biologists and he also has the highest h-index of any living biologist.
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. He pioneered the labeling of receptors by reversible ligand binding in the identification of opiate receptors and extended this technique for all the major neurotransmitter receptors in the brain. In characterizing each new group of receptors, he also elucidated actions of major neuroactive drugs. The isolation and subsequent cloning of receptor proteins stems from the ability to label, and thus monitor, receptors by these ligand binding techniques. The application of Dr. Snyder's techniques had enhanced the development of new agents in the pharmaceutical industry by enabling rapid screening of large number of candidate drugs. Dr. Snyder applied receptor techniques to the clarification of second messenger systems, particularly the inositol 1,4,5,-triphosphate receptors of the phosphoinositide cycle. He has made contributions to the molecular basis of olfaction including identification, isolation and cloning of the odorant binding protein and delineation of odorant regulation of second messengers. He has established gases as a new class of neurotransmitters, beginning with his demonstrating the role of nitric oxide in mediating glutamate synaptic transmission and neurotoxicity. His isolation and molecular cloning of nitric oxide synthase led to major insights into the neurotransmitter functions of nitric oxide throughout the body. Subsequently, he established carbon monoxide as another gaseous transmitter candidate.