Rate My Professor Michael Snyder

Michael Snyder is the Stanford W. Ascherman Professor of Genetics in the Department of Genetics at Stanford University School of Medicine. He received a B.A. in Chemistry and Biology from the University of Rochester in 1977 and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1982, followed by postdoctoral research at Stanford University School of Medicine. From 1986 to 2009 he was on the faculty in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University. He joined Stanford University in 2009, where he served as chair of the Department of Genetics from 2009 until 2024 and directs the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine.

Snyder is a leader in the field of functional genomics and proteomics and one of the major participants in the ENCODE project. His laboratory performed the first large-scale functional genomics project in any organism and developed numerous technologies, including proteome chips, high-resolution tiling arrays for the human genome, methods for global mapping of transcription factor binding sites, paired-end sequencing for structural variation, de novo genome sequencing using high-throughput technologies, and RNA-Seq. Seminal findings include the discovery that much more of the human genome is transcribed and contains regulatory information than previously appreciated, along with high diversity of transcription factor binding both between and within species. He combined multiple omics technologies to perform the first longitudinal integrative personal omics profile (iPOP) of an individual and used this approach to assess disease risk and monitor disease states for personalized medicine. Snyder is the author of the book Genomics and Personalized Medicine: What Everyone Needs to Know.