Rachel Green | |
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Born | Oct 24, 1964 |
Alma mater | |
Spouse | Brendan Cormack |
Children | 3 |
Scientific career | |
Institutions |
Rachel Green is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of molecular biology and genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her research focuses on ribosomes and their function in translation. Green has also been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 2000.
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]
She did postdoctoral research at University of California Santa Cruz in the lab of Harry Noller, researching the function of the ribosome in E. coli.[1][3]
Green joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1998.[1] In 2007 she became a full professor at Johns Hopkins.[4]
Green has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 2000.[5]
She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2012,[6] to the National Academy of Medicine[7] in 2017, and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.[8]
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]
Green has more than 16,000 citations in Google Scholar and an h-index of 69.[17]
Selected Publications
Green's husband, Brendan Cormack, is also a geneticist at Johns Hopkins University. The couple has 3 children.[1]