Solomon Snyder of Johns Hopkins and two other
pioneering investigators who determined how cells
communicate with their environment through the use of
receptors, have been named the recipients of the $500,000
Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical
Research, America's largest cash prize in medicine.
In announcing the winners, the Albany Medical Center
said, "Their groundbreaking discoveries of how receptors
transmit signals from hormones, drugs and other stimuli to
trigger action within the cell helped give rise to a new
and rapid phase of drug development, including many of
today's most commonly used prescription drugs."
The researchers, working independently and
simultaneously on cell receptors, will each receive
one-third of the award.
Snyder, currently Distinguished Service Professor of
Neuroscience,
Pharmacology and Psychiatry, established the
School of Medicine's Department of Neuroscience in 1980 and
served as its director until 2006. In 2005, on the occasion
of his 25th anniversary as director, Johns Hopkins Medicine
announced that the department would be renamed the Solomon
H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience in recognition of his
lifetime of achievement and his extraordinary
generosity.
Snyder is the recipient of numerous professional
honors, including the Albert Lasker Award for Basic
Biomedical Research, the National Medal of Science and
seven honorary doctor of science degrees. He is a member of
the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical
Society and author of more than 1,000 journal articles and
a number of books, including Uses of Marijuana, Madness and
the Brain, The Troubled Mind, Biological Aspects of
Abnormal Behavior, Drugs and the Brain and
Brainstorming.
The other co-recipients of the Albany Prize are Robert
J. Lefkowitz, the James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and
HHMI Investigator at Duke University, and Ronald M. Evans,
HHMI Investigator at the Salk Institute for Biological
Studies.
The annual Albany Prize, announced each spring, was
created to encourage and recognize extraordinary and
sustained contributions to improving health care and
promoting biomedical research with translational benefits
applied to improved patient care. It was endowed by Morris
"Marty" Silverman in 2000 with a $50 million gift
commitment to Albany Medical Center.
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