Gretchen Snyder, PhD

Dr. Snyder received her undergraduate degree magna cum laude in psychobiology from Mount Holyoke College. She earned a PhD in behavioral neuroscience at The University of Pittsburgh.Her doctoral work with Dr. Michael Zigmond helped to identify the neurochemical compensations that support behavioral function in pre-clinical models sustaining sub-total dopamine loss after 6-OHDA lesions, a model of sub-clinical parkinsonism. Dr. Snyder then joined the Biogenic Amines Research Group at Abbott Laboratories, headed by Dr. John Kebabian, as a post-doctoral fellow in 1987. Her work at Abbott and, later as a research associate and assistant professor at The Rockefeller University with Dr. Paul Greengard, focused on the identification of biochemical pathways regulating dopamine neurotransmission mediated by the dopamine and cAMP-regulated phosphoprotein, called DARPP-32. Using DARPP-32 knockout pre-clinical models she identified several neuronal proteins, including glutamate and GABA receptors, as targets for regulation by dopamine, through the regulation of DARPP-32. Dr. Snyder became as associate professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at Drexel University College of Medicine in 2001 and, in 2003, the senior director of neuropharmacology at Intra-Cellular Therapies Inc in New York City, a pharmaceutical company which is developing therapies for psychiatric diseases, such as psychosis, and neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.