He completed his BA in 1905 and PhD in 1907 both at the University of Michigan, his father's alma mater.

[1] Van Slyke took up a post-doctoral position at the Rockefeller Institute in 1907, under Phoebus Levene.

Levene also arranged for him to spend one year in Berlin under Hermann Emil Fischer in 1911.

In 1914, Van Slyke was appointed chief chemist of the newly founded Rockefeller Institute Hospital, where he played a key part in developing the field of clinical chemistry.

[8] His work focused especially on the measurement of gas and electrolyte levels in tissues,[1] for which he is considered to be one of the founders of modern quantitative blood chemistry.

The two-volume work was widely accepted in the medical world as the "Bible" of quantitative clinical chemistry.

In 1948, approaching retirement age, Van Slyke took up a position as deputy director of biology and medicine of the newly-formed Brookhaven National Laboratory.

He held this position briefly before moving back into research at Brookhaven, which he continued until his death in 1971.