Rachel Green was born on October 24, 1964. Green grew up in Rocky River, Ohio, where her mother was a chemistry teacher.[1] Green intended to study engineering in college, but changed her major to
chemistry, earning a B.S. from the
University of Michigan in 1986. She then earned a PhD in
biochemistry from
Harvard University in 1992, in the lab of
Jack Szostak, where she studied
RNA.[2]
The focus of Green's laboratory is defining the molecular mechanisms that affect that accuracy of
translation in
bacteria,
yeast, and higher
eukaryotic systems.[9] After joining Johns Hopkins as a tenure-track assistant professor in 1998, Green began investigations into factors that control the translocation step of translation, where the
ribosome moves forward over the
messenger RNA (mRNA), prior to adding the next
amino acid to the growing
protein.[10][11] Later, Green's research segued into studies on molecular factors and global mechanisms that affect translation accuracy.[12] In particular, Green and her colleagues found that certain
nucleotides in
transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules affect the ability of the ribosome to determine and select the correct tRNA in each step of translation.[13] Green's investigations into other aspects of translation quality control have included research into the mechanisms and effects of mRNA surveillance, in which mis-coded or nonfunctional mRNAs are subjected to degradation.[14][15][16]
2012 with S Djuranovic, A Nahvi, miRNA-mediated gene silencing by translational repression followed by mRNA deadenylation and decay, in: Science. Vol. 336, nº 6078; 237-240.
2010 with T Schneider-Poetsch, J Ju, DE Eyler, Y Dang, S Bhat, WC Merrick, B Shen, JO Liu, Inhibition of eukaryotic translation elongation by cycloheximide and lactimidomycin, in: Nature Chemical Biology. Vol. 6, nº 3; 209-217.
1997 with HF Noller, Ribosomes and translation, in: Annual Review of Biochemistry. Vol. 66, nº 1; 679-716.
2011 with S Djuranovic, A Nahvi, A parsimonious model for gene regulation by miRNAs, in: Science. Vol. 331, nº 6017; 550-553.
1989 with F Michel, M Hanna, DP Bartel, JW Szostak, The guanosine binding site of the Tetrahymena ribozyme, in: Nature. Vol. 342, nº 6248; 391-395.
Personal life
Green's husband,
Brendan Cormack, is also a geneticist at Johns Hopkins University. The couple has 3 children.[1]