Born in 1950 in Iceland, Jon Snaedal received his medical degree from the Medical Faculty, University of Iceland in 1976. He specialized in internal medicine and geriatrics in Sweden during 1979 –1984. He has worked as a specialist in Geriatric Medicine, National University Hospital in Reykjavik, Iceland 1984-1997 and since then he has been the head of the Psychogeriatric Clinic, including the Memory Clinic at the same hospital. Since 2004 he is Associate Professor in Geriatric Medicine. He has done research in the fields of geriatrics and dementia, specially Alzheimer´s disease, and is the author and coauthor of many papers on that subject in Icelandic and International medical literature. He was the vice president of the Icelandic Medical Association 1996-2004, the chair of the Nordic Medical Council 2003-2005 and a member of the Council of the World Medical Association 2001-2005. During 2003-2005 he was the chair of the Medical Ethics Committee of the WMA. In 2006 he was elected President of the WMA for the period 2007-2008. He is now an honorary member of the Icelandic Medical Association.He is married to Gudrun Karlsdottir RN and they have altogether seven children.