Ralph Snyderman, MD, is Chancellor Emeritus of Duke University and James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Medicine. He currently serves as Executive Director of the Duke Center for Personalized Health Care. Dr. Snyderman has created environments for academic excellence and personalized patient care.

A nationally recognized leader in academic medicine, Dr. Snyderman served as chancellor for health affairs (1989–2004) and dean of the Duke University School of Medicine (1989–1999), guiding a period of significant growth in clinical excellence, research, and educational innovation. During this tenure, he led the creation of the Duke University Health System and served as its founding President and Chief Executive Officer—helping to demonstrate how academic medicine can integrate discovery, education, and high-quality care at scale.

Dr. Snyderman helped catalyze Duke’s expansion in clinical investigation, including development of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, described by Duke as the world’s largest academic clinical research institution. He was also instrumental in the creation of the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, established in 2005. This collaboration was a key achievement in his efforts to expand Duke’s academic medicine, fostering a new graduate-entry medical school, which is one of Singapore’s three main medical institutions.

A physician-scientist, Dr. Snyderman’s research has shaped modern understanding of inflammation and leukocyte responses to chemotactic signals. He earned his B.S. from Washington College and his M.D. (magna cum laude) from SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and later served as Senior Vice President for medical research and development at Genentech.

Nationally, Dr. Snyderman has provided leadership as Chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges (2001–2002)—which has described him as the “father of personalized medicine”—and as President of the Association of American Physicians (2003–2004). He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. His honors include the David E. Rogers Award and the Precision Medicine World Congress Pioneer Award, and his bibliography includes nearly 400 publications and the book A Chancellor’s Tale: Transforming Academic Medicine.

Dr. Snyderman serves on the Board of Advisors of the Emundi Foundation, supporting its mission to create a new medical school serving the California’s North State region.

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