Rachel Green
Biochemist who studies how the ribosome works and how cells detect and rescue stalled or colliding ribosomes, including links to the integrated stress response
Bloomberg Distinguished Professor and Director, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine · Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator (since 2000) · Johns Hopkins faculty since 1998
Portrait: Johns Hopkins University, Department of Biology
Rachel Green studies the ribosome, the molecular machine that reads messenger RNA and builds proteins. Her laboratory in Baltimore combines biochemistry, genetics and ribosome profiling in bacteria, yeast and human cells, and asks what happens when translation goes wrong: how cells spot stalled ribosomes, clear them, and trigger stress responses such as the integrated stress response.
The 2026 Atlas study asks how cancer cells survive when ribosome production is blocked. A genetic screen found that switching off mTOR let cells live despite severe translation problems. Rather than rebuilding ribosomes, mTORC1 inhibition redirected the few available ribosomes away from the highly translated 5'TOP messages, mostly ribosomal proteins, toward transcripts needed for survival. The authors call this 'translational fitness'.
Green's group at Johns Hopkins supplied the translation expertise for this collaboration, which was led by Marikki Laiho's cancer research group at the same university. She has been an HHMI Investigator since 2000.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | M | mTOR inactivation governs adaptive survival to ribosome biogenesis deficiency FAN2026 Co-author in the Genes & Development study showing that mTOR inactivation lets cells survive ribosome biogenesis deficiency by redistributing ribosomes away from 5'TOP mRNAs; she is a ribosome and translation specialist at Johns Hopkins. |
Co-authors in the Atlas
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Rachel Green.
- Marikki Laiho Studies DNA damage, the nucleolar stress response and how RNA polymerase I (which makes ribosomal RNA) can be targeted in cancer.
Every researcher with a profile →
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