He has demonstrated in detail that the direction of growth in plants is controlled by the orientation of cellulose microfibrils in the cell wall, and occurs at right angles to the microfibrils. Form and pattern are inherited as regularly as are features more readily identified with conventional gene products. This late step in gene expression, morphogenesis, is the interest of the Green lab. Most theory on this subject, pattern formation, proposes that a chemical pre-pattern is made first, by diffusing inhibitors, and the physical folding of tissue is the response. The lab has shown that it is very likely that the patterning process occurs in the solid state, following physical buckling theory.
Physical morphogenesis precedes detailed differentiation.
Morphogenesis and pattern are studied in plants, at the shoot meristem where vegetative and floral geometry is initiated. SEM method is used, as is the talent of engineering departments on campus. The links between physical changes, cytoskeletal responses, and conventional gene expression are under study. Professor Green has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In addition, he is a Foreign Member of the Royal Belgium Academy of Arts and Sciences.