Brian D. Snyder, MD, Ph.D.
Director, Orthopedic Biomechanics Laboratory

Phone: 617.667.2940
Fax:     617.667.7175
Email:  bsnyder@bidmc.harvard.edu

Background

Dr. Snyder has been associated with the laboratory since its inception in 1980. He received his undergraduate and master's degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his M.D. and Ph.D. in Biomechanics at the University of Pennsylvania under the auspices of the Medical Scientist Training Program funded by NIH. He is a board certified orthopaedic surgeon having completed his orthopaedic residency training in the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic program in 1992. Presently he is on staff at Children's Hospital where his clinical practice focuses on spinal deformity related to congenital and neuromuscular etiologies, hip dysplasia and other acquired deformities about the hip, cerebral palsy and pediatric trauma. Dr. Snyder has an active clinical practice where he sees 2,500 patients per year in the outpatient clinics at Children's and Franciscan Children's Hospitals and performs approximately 325 surgical cases per year.

Dr. Snyder is also a dedicated research scientist who has forged a collaboration between the Orthopedic Biomechanics Laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Children's Hospital, merging the sophisticated analytic techniques developed at the Orthopedic Biomechanics Laboratory with the innovative diagnostic and surgical techniques developed at Children's Hospital for treating musculoskeletal conditions in children and young adults. He is an Instructor in Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School and organizes the orthopaedic resident basic science curriculum at Children's Hospital. He also lectures on orthopaedic management of cerebral palsy, infection of bone and joints, treatment of upper and lower extremity fractures in children, basic biomechanics and biomechanics of fracture healing. He has authored 12 peer reviewed journal articles, 4 chapters and 32 peer reviewed abstracts of papers presented at research meetings. He is a fellow in the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and a member of the Orthopaedic Research Society, the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America, the Scoliosis Research Society, and the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.

Selected Publications

1- Snyder BD, Hayes WC: Multiaxial structure-property relations in trabecular bone. In: Biomechanics of Diarthrodial Joints (eds. VC Mow, A Ratcliffe, S L-Y Woo) Springer-Verlag, New York, Vol II, pp. 31-59, 1990.
2- Snyder BD, Piazza S, Edwards WT, Hayes WC: Role of trabecular morphology in the etiology of age-related vertebral fractures. Calcif Tissue Int 53: S14-S22, 1993.
3- Snyder BD, Myers ER, Breitenbach MA, Emans JA: Bone density accumulation is not affected by time in brace in adolescent girls with idiopathic scoliosis. J Bone Joint Surg, in press.
4- Hong J, Hipp JA, Mulkern RV, Jaramillo D, Snyder BD: MRI measurements of bone density and cross-sectional geometry. Calcif Tissue Int - in press.