Lawrence's main discoveries lie in trying to understand the information that shapes an animal or generates a pattern (such as on a butterfly wing or a fingerprint). He is a principal advocate of the theory that cells in a gradient of amorphogen each develop according to the local concentration of that morphogen and that this mechanism thereby patterns fields of cells. Together withGinés Morata, he has helped establish the compartment theory. Under this hypothesis a set of cells collectively builds a precisely defined territory (orcompartment) in the animal. As development proceeds, aselector gene switches on in a subset of these cells thus dividing the set into two, all the progeny of each set construct one of the two adjacent compartments.[5] Much of the evidence for the hypothesis comes from studies on the abdomen ofOncopeltus[6][7] and theDrosophila fly wing.[8]
Since the mid 1990s he has collaborated with José Casal,Gary Struhl, and others to studyPlanar Cell Polarity (PCP) and cell affinity. PCP is a common property of cells which can show coordinated polarity in the plane of the epithelia. PCP is often revealed by the consistent orientation of visible structures such as cuticular bristles in insects or hairs in mammals. Using the powerful genetics of Drosophila, particularly the ability to make genetic mosaics, Lawrence and his colleagues provided evidence that there are two separate molecular/genetic systems that build PCP. At the heart of each system is a gradient of a molecule that extends across the tissue. The local slopes of these gradients are detected by means of molecules that form intercellular bridges and are used to orient PCP in each cell.[9][10]Casal, Lawrence and their group have now demonstrated and measured the two molecular gradients in vivo.[11][12]His research was funded by theMedical Research Council, theWellcome Trust and theLeverhulme Trust.
Lawrence wrote the bookThe Making of a Fly in 1992,[2] which explains how the body plans of flies are constructed. Findings on the fly have strong implications for other animals such as mammals. The book received further "recognition" in April 2011 when fellow biologistMichael Eisen discovered two booksellers were programmatically setting increasingly higher prices for copies of the book onamazon.com used book market.Margrethe Vestager (European Commissioner for Competition) mentioned this event as an early example ofalgorithmic tacit collusion on March 16, 2017.[14][15] The sellers eventually priced copies over 23 million USD before thefeedback loop was broken.[16][17][18][19]
