It is with great sadness that I share word of the passing on December 23, 2018, of Robert “Bob” Snyder, PhD, ATS, Professor II Emeritus of the Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy and the founding director of the Joint Graduate Program in Toxicology at Rutgers.
Hailing from Brooklyn, Bob earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the City University of New York (CUNY) Queens College in 1957. As a graduate student, Bob trained under Martin Schulman at the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, receiving his PhD in biochemistry in 1961. He then moved with Dr. Schulman to complete three years of US Public Health Service-sponsored postoctoral work at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
In 1963, Bob joined the faculty of the Department of Pharmacology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia where he remained for 18 years. In 1981, he accepted a position as the founding director of the Joint Graduate Program in Toxicology (JGPT), an interdepartmental training program in mechanistic toxicology, at Rutgers. Since that time, the JGPT has trained more than 200 doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, and clinician scientists. Many of these individuals have, in turn, gone on to have distinguished careers in academia, industry, and government.
While at Rutgers, Bob was instrumental in securing NIEHS Training and Center Grants (both in 1987). These awards led directly to the formation of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI), which continues to serve as a center to foster interaction among experts in environmental health, toxicology, occupational health, exposure assessment, public policy, and health education.
Bob loved teaching. Over the years, he served as mentor to many and provided direct graduate student supervision to some 17 successful doctoral students (this author among them), believing that he was sending them out to better the world. Although he retired from active teaching in 2012, Bob continued to maintain a significant role in the JGPT and EOHSI and continued to give occasional course lectures at Rutgers.
An active SOT member since 1970, Bob was instrumental in the chartering, formation, and initial success of the SOT Mid-Atlantic Regional Chapter (MASOT), the first Regional Chapter of SOT. Of note, his involvement in the formation of MASOT led directly to the creation of the first Student Councilor position on any SOT leadership board. In 1996, which coincided with the 15th anniversary of the founding of the JGPT at Rutgers, he received the SOT Education Award. Bob also was recognized by MASOT and presented with their 2003 Ambassador of Toxicology Award. Bob served as president of MASOT (1982/83), president of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences (1998/99), and president of the American College of Toxicology (2003/04).
Throughout his more than 50-year career in toxicology, the principle area of Bob's research focused on the toxicology of benzene; he published well over 100 books, research papers, reviews, and other materials on the topic. As his career matured, Bob's interests broadened to more generally examine toxicology of the bone marrow, exploring the underlying mechanism of leukemogenesis through examination of the role of subdivisions of bone marrow (termed bone marrow “niches"). He served on many national and international committees that discussed the issues of benzene exposure and its subsequent toxic and carcinogenic effects. Of note, Bob was a contributing member of the 1981 International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Working Group that concluded that there was sufficient evidence to indicate that benzene is carcinogenic to man. Among the many other important committees on which he served over the years, some notables included the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Toxicology, where he was an active member of the NAS-NRC Subcommittees on Toxicological Hazard and Risk Assessment; Guidelines for Spacecraft Maximum Allowable Concentrations (SMACs) for Space Station Contaminants; and Permissible Exposure Levels (PELs) for Military Jet Fuels. He organized a series of international symposia on biological reactive intermediates and served on the National Advisory Committee on Acute Exposure Guideline Levels.
Owing to Brooklyn roots, Bob was a Dodgers fan from the time he was a little boy and was crushed when they left for Los Angeles; however, he became a passionate Phillies fan once his family moved to Philadelphia. This love for baseball is why he was so enthusiastic about occasionally playing on the Rutgers JGPT softball team, the Tox Sox. He also loved to play tennis, clearing time for it twice a week for at least 30 years, and was devastated when health concerns forced him to stop. He was a voracious reader of history, naval history, biographies, and scientists' memoirs and loved going to the opera—I am told that he sometimes had to be actively discouraged from singing along with his favorite arias.
Bob is survived by his wife Harriet, daughter Elizabeth, son Matthew, a brother and sister, and three grandchildren.
Working with him originally as a graduate student at Jefferson back in the late 70s/early 80s and then as one of the founding students of the JGPT, Bob meant a great deal to me both professionally and personally. He will be greatly missed by me and many others across the toxicology community.