Psychiatric Times 
July 2005
Vol. XXII
Issue 8
Although he hated science in high school, Solomon Snyder, M.D., received the nation's highest science honor this year, the National Medal of Science. In the intervening 40+ years, Snyder found that he loved the discovery and creativity of scientific research. In fact, his lab at Johns Hopkins University pioneered the identification of opiate receptors and was the first to identify several novel neurotransmitters.
Ironically, it was Snyder's love of music that facilitated his entry into scientific research.
"When I was in high school, one thing I did really well was play the classical guitar. I gave concerts and played for Andres Segovia, the great classical guitarist," Snyder told Psychiatric Times.
Snyder considered taking master classes with Segovia after high school and then attending a music conservatory. Instead, "after a lot of soul searching," the Washington, D.C., native chose to attend Georgetown University.
"In high school, I liked reading about philosophy. My other friends were considering going into engineering or pre-med. I got this idea that psychiatry might be a little like philosophy. Though I hated science, I thought I could stomach it and be pre-med, which I was at Georgetown," he said.
He worked his way through college giving guitar lessons and helping to run a guitar store. One of Snyder's guitar students was among the first group of research associates at the National Institutes of Health, and he invited Snyder to spend a summer working at his NIH lab before entering the Georgetown University School of Medicine.
"So I went to work in the lab, and I found that it wasn't like science we learned in school. It was very creative, and I loved it. I spent all of my summers and elective periods at NIH," he said.
